


Anomie

by PerfidiouslySnatching



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Basilisk - Freeform, Child Abuse, Dysfunctional Family, Enmeshment, F/F, Family Drama, Ghosts, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knockturn Alley, Muggle-born Slytherin Character, Pre-Femslash, Puberty, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Self-Discovery, Supernatural Elements, gay awakening™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28589520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerfidiouslySnatching/pseuds/PerfidiouslySnatching
Summary: Hestia Carrow sits alone at the crossroads between her family’s old pure-blood ideals and a rapidly changing society. Her twin, Flora, does whatever she’s supposed to just to keep things quiet. Hestia, though, was never good at doing what she was supposed to do. She was always her family’s bitter disappointment.One day, she meets a girl who makes disappointing her family sound like a pretty good idea.
Relationships: Alecto Carrow & Amycus Carrow, Flora Carrow & Hestia Carrow, Hestia Carrow/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. August, 1984

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work, told from Hestia Carrow's perspective, is a prequel to [my longfic series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20340886/chapters/48230362), but it can also stand alone.
> 
> Song rec:  
> ◈ [Bells for Her by Tori Amos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADFgbePK7gw)

> The Carrow family had lived in the coastal town of Cromer ever since the village of Shipden flooded centuries ago. Shipden was located past the town’s large pier, and it had been submerged for so long that it was all but disintegrated.

But Shipden’s church bells still rang, usually when one wasn’t paying attention. Even Muggles heard them sometimes. Amycus Carrow heard the bells a lot.

“Listen closely now,” he told his little nieces as they walked along the beach at the crest of evening.

Hestia held her breath against the fishy, salty smell and squinted out to sea, as if that would make it easier to hear the bells. She couldn’t hear a thing. She turned to her identical twin, Flora, who was huddled up against Aunt Alecto’s legs, practically tangled in her long dress.

“You hear ’em?” Hestia asked.

Flora put a single finger to her lips, _shh_. Hestia looked up to see Uncle Am glaring down at her. She was in trouble for being too loud. It was awfully hard to wait to hear something she couldn’t hear, though. She didn’t have the attention span for it and started digging in the sand, collecting unfathomable treasures. She stuffed her pocket with _five_ different types of seashells, a Muggle bottle cap, and half the shell of a dead crab.

“Give me that _rubbish_ ,” Aunt Allie scolded angrily, snapping her fingers in Hestia’s face. “That’s dirty, Hestia. Don’t touch dirty things. Ugh, _Muggle items_. Now I have to clean your hands.”

Hestia’s tears stung the edges of her eyes as her aunt Scoured her palms clean. She watched the bottle cap and the crab shell get thrown into the waves to be lost forever. Just as she was about to cry, though, Aunt Allie Scoured the seashells and gave them back to Hestia to keep her quiet.

“Now shut it and listen.”

Uncle Am had all but wandered into the water, having rolled his trousers up above his knees. Hestia wished she was allowed to play in the water, too, but she was told she was too young.

A few moments later, Uncle Am exclaimed, “Ah, _there_!”

He pointed out to the water. All Hestia could hear were the crashing waves. He splashed his way out of the waves and back to Aunt Allie.

“I told you it was a good night for ’em, didn’t I? You hear ’em, Alecto?”

“I been hearin’ bells since you first coaxed me down here when we was kids,” Aunt Allie chuckled. “D’you hear them, girls?”

“I hear them, Aunt Allie,” Flora said sweetly, swinging hands with her.

Uncle Am scooped Flora up over his shoulders and spun her all around until she squealed with giggles. Hestia stayed on the ground, wishing that Aunt Allie would pick her up. Then she’d be as tall as Flora. Maybe she’d even _feel_ as tall as Flora. Hestia was a so jealous that everyone could hear the mysterious bells except her.

“Don’t hear ’em, do ya?” Uncle Am accused.

“Nuh-uh,” Hestia said.

“Must be your magic ain’t strong enough yet. You’ll hear ’em one day.”

The way he said it didn’t sound like he believed it. Hestia tried to hide her tears in Aunt Allie’s dress, but since she’d been playing round in the sand, Aunt Allie didn’t want her up against her.

“You need a bath is what you need, Hestia,” she huffed.

Flora got to ride on Uncle’s shoulders on the walk back as Hestia struggled to keep up with Aunt Allie, who was tugging her little arm.

“Uncle Am, I want a turn!” Hestia declared.

“You’re covered in sand,” he dismissed.

“Clean me with a spell!”

“Hestia, _shut it_ , there’s Mudbloods about now,” he hissed down at her.

There were lots of Muggles here. Hestia didn’t see anything really wrong with them except that they were all bigger than her. But Aunt and Uncle _really_ didn’t like them. They both sent nasty looks up to the pier as they passed by it, then turned their nasty looks to Muggles walking along the promenade. The Muggles looked like they were having more fun, really. They were walking cute dogs, riding bicycles, taking pictures of each other, holding hands, and laughing. Hestia’s ankles were struggling against the sand. Flora started calling out the colours of the long line of wooden beach huts all along the shore.

“Blue, pink, yellow, yellow, green, blue-and-white!”

“You got ’em!” Uncle Am congratulated her. “What’s your favourite colour, little flower?”

“Green!” Flora said.

“Mine’s green, too!” Hestia yelped.

“Aunt Allie loves yellow. My favourite’s blue,” Uncle Am told Flora. “That makes green, don’t it?”

“Green? No way!” Flora babbled.

“Yes way!” Aunt Allie laughed.

“I like blue, too…” Hestia struggled for attention. (Really, her favourite colour was green).

They trailed along the dark seawall and up a walking path, where several zig-zagged sets of steps led up to their street. Uncle Am spun Flora round and round again about the same time Hestia felt like toppling over from exhaustion.

> _**Katy Walters / Beach huts, Cromer /[CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)** _

“Y’see the pier from here, Flora?”

“Yup!”

“And where that ramp is, that’s the lifeboat station. You need lifeboats ’cause high tide gets angry. Some call it Devil’s Throat out there. The storm surge can get all the way up to the platform of the pier.”

“No way!” said Flora.

“Yes way. Now look where I’m pointing. That’s the church tower. That ain’t the one we heard, though. We heard the one under the water.”

“What’s up top?” Flora asked.

“A bell, prob’ly.”

“Can we go?”

“Aw, hell, Flora, I ain’t goin’ in no Muggle church,” Uncle Am said. “Likes o’ them killed our kind.”

“Oh,” said Flora.

 _Oh_ , thought Hestia. Whatever that meant, it didn’t sound good.

They turned down a curved street alongside the lawns of the park, packed with immobile Muggle autos in a line. There was a wrought-iron fence at the edge through which coastal grasses grew feet high. Beyond that was a large patch of grass that gave way into a large thicket of trees overlooking the sea. It was there that the Carrows’ house was hidden, Unplottable and Muggle-proof. Anyone without magic in them would just see the trees.

The Carrow house was Victorian in style, but not of the attractive variety. Its structure was entirely symmetrical, with a bay turret on each side and stained-glass window accents with tacky sailboat motifs. Under a blunted archway reminiscent of an abbey, a blue door sat perfectly in the centre, made of old-fashioned vertical wood planks. The edifice was grey and off-taupe and marked by pebblework. Though unappealing, the house was substantial in size and strong in structure. The family hadn’t always had this nice a house. There were several things wrong with the interior, though, that the Spirit Division of the Ministry likely would not be able to solve even if they were permitted inside.

But little Hestia saw the place where she could get off her feet and tell her Daddy about her trip to the beach.

Daddy wasn’t as active as Uncle Am and Aunt Allie. Sometimes it seemed like his favourite thing to do was stare at the wall. But he and Hestia would make moulding clay in the play-cauldron she shared with Flora. Flora didn’t play with it, so Hestia was more than happy to have it all to herself. She baked pretend cakes that weren’t really there and made pretend potions from coloured water Daddy conjured. They would play make-believe about all the magical things her potions could do. If she said the potion could make her fly, Daddy would Levitate her high in the air. If she said the potion was for gardening, Daddy would conjure flowers in her hair.

But Daddy’s bedtime was often even earlier than hers, and then she’d be stuck with Aunt Allie and Uncle Am. Like now. Daddy was already asleep when they got in. Hestia wasn’t sure she’d remember everything about her trip tomorrow. She wanted to tell him now, but the more she tried to get to him, the more trouble she got in. Uncle Am put her in time-out and cast a spell on her. She couldn’t even move her legs as she sat on the stool. Aunt Allie and Uncle Am Scoured the bottoms of their shoes clean and then helped Flora get hers off. Flora usually didn’t get dirty enough to get the Scouring Charm, so she still thought the bubbles were fun. Hestia already had learnt to hate them at the age of three.

“ _Pssst_. Flora,” she whispered, beckoning her twin over to the corner.

Flora looked over her shoulder before trotting over.

“Yeah?”

“What trick did you use to hear the bells?”

“It, er, wasn’t a trick,” Flora said, looking side-to-side.

“Well, how’d you hear them? I wanna hear, too,” Hestia whispered.

Flora rubbed her face and kept looking off to the side. Hestia gasped.

“You didn’t hear ’em, either, didja? You lied!”

“I didn’t lie!” Flora erupted. “I heard them, I did!”

“No, you didn’t! You’re a fibber! You told a lie!”

“I’m not a fibber!” Flora cried.

Aunt Allie came storming in like a, well… a _storm_ , all right. Hestia cowered atop her stool. She already knew what was coming. Not only had she been talking during time-out, she had made Flora cry. Aunt Allie smacked Hestia hard across the cheek, making her cry, too.

“Come here, sweetie, come here, it’s okay,” Aunt Allie soothed Flora, leading her over to the sofa. Flora climbed up and sat against her aunt, sobbing into her arm.

“Was Hestia cruel to you?” Aunt Allie asked, kissing Flora’s head.

Flora didn’t admit that Hestia had been bad, but Aunt Allie figured it out.

“Amycus,” she called.

Hestia wasn’t even over the pain of having been smacked across the face yet. But the next thing she knew, she was over Uncle Am’s knee getting paddled. It hurt too much. She was already crying as hard as she could. Where was Daddy?

“Don’t hurt her!” Flora screeched in shock. “Stop that!”

Uncle Am shoved Hestia off his knee, where she crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

“She’s gotta learn, my little flower,” Aunt Allie crowed. “See? It’s over. She’s gotta learn.”

Hestia blinked at her twin through the tears, hating her and loving her all the same. Flora snuggled her cheek against Aunt Allie’s belly and stopped crying sooner than Hestia. Aunt Allie stroked Flora’s hair. Hestia had to suffer alone.

“Aban, get up and wash your damn kid!” Uncle Am screamed up the steps.

Daddy came down a couple minutes later, but it felt like forever. He scooped Hestia into his arms, but he didn’t seem very comforting. He wasn’t cruel, either, which made a world of difference to Hestia. He didn’t offer any soothing words, but he kissed her forehead and ran the bath. Daddy’s arms were much softer than Uncle Am’s.

“You want cucumber or peach shampoo today, Hestia?”

Hestia sniffled as Daddy got the sand off of her.

“Cucumber…”

“Okay, shut your eyes tight or it’ll sting,” Daddy said.

Hestia listened to Daddy. It was a lot easier to understand what he wanted compared to her aunt and uncle. She was never in trouble with him. It wasn’t that Hestia would remember this day exactly as she got older. But she would always remember that Flora was better liked by Aunt Allie and Uncle Am, that most the things she liked were considered “dirty,” and that Daddy never came to her rescue until it was too late.


	2. July, 1992

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song rec:  
> ◈ [Fish by Wye Oak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNCWeddxwg)

> _**Evelyn Simak / The church of SS Peter & Paul / ** _ [ **_CC BY-SA 2.0_ ** ](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

A grand church with a tall tower and impressive stained-glass windows stood aside the girls, now eleven. It was their last summer before going to Hogwarts, and they were both excited at the prospect of getting out of the house. To their left was a graveyard predating even the oldest members of Wizardkind. A few Muggles milled about the other side of the building with cameras out. Flora looked round with great suspicion considering that most of their present company was deceased and six feet under tidy beds of flowers. Their family never did end up taking them to go up the tower, so Flora talked Hestia into going by themselves one morning. She led Hestia along the graveyard path with a tight grip on her elbow.

Hestia found the antiquated carvings of skulls and bones upon the headstones extremely cool. Then she looked below her own feet by chance and startled. It appeared she had stepped on a broken gravestone, intermingled with the path’s normal slabs. Was this a Muggle custom?

> **_dommumortis / Old gravestones used to pave the pathway around Cromer Church /_ [ _original_ ](https://domummortis.tumblr.com/post/164302120571/old-gravestones-used-to-pave-the-pathway-around) **

“If you stand on one of these headstones in the path and spin around three times, a ghost’ll grab you,” Flora whispered with a grin.

“Nuh-uh,” said Hestia.

“Try it then,” Flora dared.

“You first.”

“Fine. Back up.”

Flora picked a long headstone, stepped upon it, and started twirling.

“One… two… three!”

Nothing happened.

“All right, all right, now me!” Hestia said with a stroke of newfound bravery.

She picked another headstone cemented in the path and spun atop it.

“One… two… three!”

On the count of three, a very sharp chill ran down her back, and she jumped up with a shriek. She ran sideways round the church and tumbled in the patch of churchyard grass, staining her robes and catching the eyes of many Muggles. She didn’t care.

“Did one getcha?” Flora exclaimed. “That’s not fair!”

“I — well, I wouldn’t say it was a good thing!” Hestia laughed. “You see enough ghosts at the house. Maybe they thought I needed attention!”

“Ha-ha,” Flora said sarcastically.

The church’s door was open for a motley mix of worshippers and tourists, and when Hestia peeked in to see the stained glass, she could see that just as many images dealt with nautical scenes as they did saints.

“Are we really allowed in there…?” Hestia whispered to her twin.

“Other people are going up the tower to see the top. Why can’t we?”

“Well, we’re…” Hestia stalled and cupped her hand over Flora’s ear, “witches.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Flora said haughtily. “We just have to keep quiet about it ’cause they’re jealous.”

Still, it was busy at the church on this warm summer’s day. Everybody wanted pictures of the stained glass and a view of the ocean from the tower. Hestia and Flora decided to wait until a few of the larger groups of tourists left. They crept amongst the graves, which had been battered over time with oceanic air. Some were completely nameless, covered in lichen and weathered away. But the church kept the graveyard tidy and full of perennial flowers. The girls stepped inside the church once the largest crowds dispersed and admired the stained-glass windows. The largest one at the head of the church had a picture of a man being killed.

“Is that what Muggles did to us?” Hestia whispered quieter than ever.

“No, that’s a live crucifixion. We were burned alive,” Flora whispered back.

“What’s the difference?”

“One you suffocate from the strain on your body, and the other you die from being burned,” Flora said impatiently.

She read a lot more books than Hestia, usually the kind of books that dealt with dark subject matter. Hestia preferred to read guides to medicinal herbs and gardening books. She didn’t own many; she just treated bookshops like they were libraries.

They passed images of Muggles in bright, colourful robes, and another window with striking blue imagery of lighthouses.

“These are beautiful,” Hestia remarked, and Flora nodded.

As they made their way around the church, they found a large, black placard written in old lettering. It was a different sort of headstone, one that was in the wall. Maybe the family had been cremated. Maybe this was just a sign. It was hard to tell with Muggles. Hestia’s eyes fell to a footnote beneath it. It memorialised the children of a John and Phebe Ditchell:-

_Sarah Ditchell Ditchell, who died Oct r. 5th. 1771 Aged 1 Year 4 Months._

_John, who died May 11 th. 1773, Aged 4 Days._

_John, who died July 5 th. 1774, Aged 6 Weeks._

_Sarah, who died Oct r. 24th. 1779, Aged 1 Month._

_And five Children who alſo died Infants._

“Flora, look,” Hestia said, pointing at the sign with discomfort. “These are all babies?”

It was a grim pain to think that the parents had started reusing the names. Five of the nine babies didn’t even get names in the first place. Hestia’s face twisted into a deep frown. Flora started toward the tower.

“Flora, wait. I don’t get it. Why would they all die?” Hestia questioned, thinking, perhaps, more along the lines of a murder mystery than health issues.

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Hestia. Anyone can die at any time,” Flora said.

Hestia’s knowledge of death came from two sources: their mother had died giving birth to them, and old people would die when they got too old.

 _Anyone can die at any time_?

“Even us?” Hestia asked, because she felt perfectly fine.

“Even us,” Flora responded. “Let’s go up the tower already, okay?”

 _Flora’s just being dramatic_ , Hestia thought, and she was on to something, because Flora often trended towards the melancholy and macabre. Although Hestia wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows herself, she often wished that Flora were more of a conversation partner.

The bell tower was tight and dark, with thin windows on the ascent. The steps were steep and tiring, but the girls stopped and looked out the windows frequently, prolonging their journey.

“You can see the sea now,” Flora pointed out once they were high enough. Hestia took her turn putting her nose against the thin window. Grey and orange rooftops stood out against the blue background of the ocean.

They reached the landing of the belfry, which had eight long ropes hanging down to ring the bells. Hestia was sorely tempted to ring one and walked over…

Flora grabbed her shoulder harshly.

“Those ropes are tied like nooses,” she said abruptly. “Don’t touch them.”

“Nooses?” Hestia gasped. “Flora, c’mon, those are just looped so you can hold the rope when you’re ringing!”

“Well, you’re not allowed to ring anyway unless you work here. Come on, let’s go up.”

Hestia trudged along behind her sister. Her legs were tired already, but it felt like they were less than halfway up. It didn’t look nearly as tall as it felt. After the belfry, the steps got even steeper — dangerously steep.

They reached the top ages later and felt the relief of the wind on their faces. The view was worth the effort. An entire landscape of brown buildings with white window frames stood below them. Colourful, triangular flags mimicking nautical codes were draped in lines across the streets. The hills were dark in the distance, but the huge panorama of the sea was bright blue. Practically all of the promenade and the pier were visible. Hestia and Flora peeked between the fleur designs around the ramparts.

“Feels like we’re on top of the world!” Hestia exclaimed, breathless.

“Look how small the Muggles are,” Flora peeked. “Even their autos are small.”

“And look, the graveyard we were in! It’s just a little square!” Hestia pointed out.

This was about as high up as she could get without a broom and as far away as she could be from the cold, lonely ground. But seeing the tiny graves made her think back to her conversation with Flora. This could all be over, randomly. It was the first time Hestia realised life was so fragile. Flora spent her days with a crease pinched between her eyebrows and tautly-pulled lips. But Hestia decided to make the most of everything, even though she didn’t exactly like her life.

When the girls arrived home from their trip, they were swept with a familiar, sharp scent of cleaning solution. Obeying the rules, Flora cleaned the soles of both her boots with disinfectant wipes and then removed them, placing them in a basket. Hestia hated doing this every time she came in. Since the shoes were coming off anyway, she didn’t see any reason to scrub them with the potion wipes first except to stay out of trouble with Alecto.

In the foyer, there was a handsome winder staircase that had wide curve, so that if Hestia stood still and looked straight up, she could see clear to the attic level’s ceiling. Lately, though, she had begun to deeply dislike standing there for some reason. But although she moved closer to the parlour to avoid the feeling, she wasn’t allowed in there. Amycus had his heirlooms lined across the fireplace mantel with mathematical precision, each knickknack being equidistant. The parlour was bright, airy, and very, _very_ clean. There wasn’t anywhere to sit even if the girls were allowed to hang out in there. All of the furniture was swept under large white covers, looking more like ghosts than the real spirits who apparently skulked about the house.

Flora opened the curtains in the kitchen, letting in light through the garish sailboat windows. Hestia quietly opened the windows, and a light breeze carried more tingly scents of cleaner across the room. The Carrows had never kept a House-elf, but the place was immaculate regardless. Every item was free of dust. Even the walls were washed frequently. In the kitchen, there wasn’t a trace of grime or grease on any of the preparation, cooking, or eating surfaces. Several varieties of soap sat in a tiny basket by the sink. A large bottle of lotion read, “for severely chapped hands.” The chairs all had tiny bits of cloth on the legs to prevent scuffs on the glossy wood floor. The table was parallel to the bay window, and each chair was lined up perfectly until Flora and Hestia decided to settle there with their morning tea.

Their house was rather spacious, what one might expect of the upper middle class, but it had been inherited by Alecto and Amycus along with long-depleted money which they would further deplete. They had fun buying things they couldn’t afford. Sometimes, Hestia and Flora would get needless trinkets, too, but they at least cherished and used their possessions. For Amycus and Alecto, it was more about the buying.

To keep up their spending habits and still be able to put food on the table, the Carrow family was heavily involved in the black market, which had a hub in Knockturn Alley. Now that the girls had their wands, they would soon be expected to learn how to barter, sell, and trade. Hestia was interested in learning about the potions and poisons market. Flora was interested in tomes and grimoires.

“When do you think we’ll start doing things in Knockturn?”

It was an unpleasant question that Hestia asked over the very pleasant aroma of her tea.

“Probably next summer after we’ve had a year of school. We can use magic all throughout the Alley. But they’ll have to teach us everything they do, and how they stay out of trouble. Wouldn’t want the Ministry to think the cornflour bouncy balls you made are actually lethal weapons.”

“I’m not selling my priceless bouncy balls in Knockturn,” Hestia smiled.

It was getting to be eleven o’clock, but there wasn’t any noise in the house. Dad lived just above the kitchen, down the hall from Flora and Hestia’s room, but it didn’t sound like he was up and about yet. While the girls and their father were cramped to one-and-a-half levels of living space, Amycus and Alecto had claimed the upper level and the attic of the house for their exclusive use. No one was allowed up there, lest anyone drag germs across Alecto’s floors or move Amycus’s perfectly-angled belongings.

Having just come from the graveyard, Hestia’s mind was on the subject of spooks.

“Hey, d’you think there’s ghosts upstairs?” she asked her twin.

“How should I know,” Flora said.

“Well, you’ve been tellin’ me stories about our house being haunted for ages, Flora,” Hestia said excitedly, recalling the strange chill she felt in then churchyard. “Where are they, then? I never seen a one.”

“They’re about,” Flora said with a shrug, trying to dissolve Hestia’s interest. That wasn’t working in the slightest.

“Where? Upstairs?”

“No,” said Flora. “Look, you probably won’t _see_ any. They’re—”

She gestured toward her face, “Well, they’re not—”

She kept rolling her hand around her face, trying to get the words.

“Visible?” Hestia asked.

“Er, well, no, they can be — But they’re —” she gestured both hands across her cheeks. “— Er, real shy.”

“Shy! You’re fibbing about there being ghosts, then.”

“I got no reason to fib.”

“Sure you do, to scare me.”

“I’m not in the mood, Hestia,” Flora said and stared out the window.

“Do you hear the ghost bells from Shipden now… for real?” Hestia asked, not wanting to drop the subject.

“Yes. Now I really do,” Flora said.

“I haven’t heard ’em yet. But I think lately I been feeling chills and things. Around the house, like.”

“That’s because your magic is getting stronger. Mine is, too,” Flora said.

“Do you feel the weird thing in the foyer, just out there?” Hestia wondered. “That’s where I get it the most.”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is it? What’s there? A spook? A hobgoblin?”

Flora clicked her tongue against her now-lukewarm tea.

“It’s not a good thing, Hestia. It’s just the foyer, so you don’t have any reason to stand there forever. Just ignore it.”

But the more Flora tried to drop it, the more Hestia’s heartbeat picked up. It didn’t make sense that their bright, airy house was haunted. Haunted places were supposed to be dark, dirty, and run-down. Hestia pressed and pressed for more information until her twin caved.

“Listen, Hestia, do you know anything about our grandparents?”

“Er… I know Amycus and Alecto hated them,” Hestia tried to remember. It wasn’t like the family had deep conversations together. At least not ones where Hestia was included.

“Even they had good reason to hate their parents,” Flora said. “Take Amycus and Alecto and multiply that by a hundred.”

 _A hundred times worse_? That was hard to imagine.

“All right… so…?” Hestia uttered, perhaps not wanting to know as much detail anymore.

“Well, y’know how you can stand at the bottom of the staircase there and look all the way up?” Flora asked.

“Yeah…”

“You can also jump all the way down.”

Hestia’s stomach did a little jump itself.

“What d’you mean…?

“Our grandparents killed themselves by jumping off the top banister,” Flora iced.

“What? That’s horrible…” Hestia breathed.

“No, it isn’t. They were bad people,” said Flora shortly. “Sometimes, they have to jump again. It’s pretty loud, but you can just ignore them.”

Flora sipped the last of her tea. Hestia sat in shock.

“Th-They have to… jump _again_ …?”

“Look, I only told you this so the sound don’t scare you when you first hear it. I nearly wet my bed the first time, and all you did was make fun of me,” snapped Flora.

“I — I didn’t know why you freaked out all the sudden!” Hestia said apologetically, barely even remembering the event. “I didn’t hear it!”

“Clearly,” Flora rolled her eyes. “Listen, Hestia, as your magic matures, you’ll be more in tune to these things. I hear new things each month now, pretty much. The kitchen’s usually quietest.”

Hestia was already sitting in the kitchen, but now that she knew all this, she preferred to stay.

“How come you hear more things than me? We’re identical.”

“I don’t know. It’s not something to be jealous of.”

“Does Dad know about all these ghosts?” Hestia asked.

“He barely reacts to any of them except the jumpers,” Flora answered. “Y’know he can only pay attention to like, one thing at a time. And that thing’s always you.”

“ _Me_? What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Flora shrugged with an attitude.

“You hog him. Catch his attention more. I’m too quiet to be able to hold his attention.”

“I don’t _hog_ him, Flora. Merlin! And Dad loves you, too! You’re the one who used to have Amycus and Alecto wrapped round your finger…”

“Once again, that’s _nothing_ to be jealous of,” Flora spat. “And they don’t like me anymore, not since I started sticking up for you.”

Hestia was hurt by that remark.

“Well, why don’t you quit it then? You can start treating me like shit just like they do and get back on their good side, if that’s what you want so bad.”

“I don’t want another damn ounce of their good side,” Flora snarled back.

The girls both heard a creak on the stair and startled. If only the creak had been ghostly instead of human! They had nothing to be afraid of with a ghost.

It was almost noon, but apparently the girls had interrupted Alecto’s beauty sleep. _Some beauty Alecto is_ , Hestia thought. The witch came stomping down the staircase with her hair flying everywhere and a dirty scowl wrinkled across her face.

“Where the _hell_ were you?” Alecto shot.

“Right damn here,” Hestia said.

If Alecto had been asleep until now, she had no evidence that they’d been out, right?

No. Alecto charmed the girls’ shoes out of the basket in the foyer. Their soles were still wet with disinfectant potion. Hestia bubbled with rage. It was Alecto’s obnoxious rule that had incriminated the girls; otherwise, their shoes would have been perfectly dry.

“Wanderin’ round Muggle places!” Alecto shouted. “It’s a wonder you weren’t bloody killed or trafficked, Hestia! I’m fed up with you runnin’ off when the whole house is asleep! Hold your arse still, you little snot—”

Alecto was reaching for her wand over this. Hestia held her breath and waited to be hexed.

“Lay off her, why don’t you‽” Flora snapped. “It was my idea to go since none of you would take us. And it’s not like I can go wake you up, is it‽”

“Flora Asrai, you better _watch your mouth_ —” Alecto cautioned angrily.

“Watch yours then, talkin’ to my sister that way!” Flora exclaimed. “I just told you it was _my_ idea!”

“Well, _you_ oughtta know better!”

“Wha’s goin’ on?” Amycus asked sleepily, stepping into the kitchen to get in on the imminent hexing.

“ _Nothing_ ,” Flora said, and she grabbed Hestia’s wrist with one hand and a bag of crisps with the other.

The girls ran up the stairs to their room and shut the door. The locks had been taken out of their door, so Flora shoved her bed in front of it from its place against the wall.

Hestia had the window side of the room. She used the window seat as a place to put her potted plants and pictures of her mother, Mabily Blodwyn. Mum was only nineteen when she died bringing them into life. Her hair was a rich amber-brown, and her eyes were light blue. But the girls only had her nose and smile. Mum was pretty enough to make up for the not-so-attractive features of the Carrow family. In Hestia’s favourite picture, Mum kissed a young Dad on the cheek, and his face turned red. He had been cuter then. There was a light in his eyes that Hestia had never seen.

Hestia looked out the window and watched the waves crash gently over families having fun with each other on holiday. Flora passed her the bag of crisps, and they crunched their measly breakfast in silence.


	3. August - September, 1992

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song rec:  
> ◈ [Medusa by Kailee Morgue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMOiWRMBH-E)
> 
> As a note, I write Wizarding culture as not being homophobic or transphobic. Their cultural issues come from blood purity. Even though there isn't that prejudice, I write Wizarding LGBT+ people as more of a minority, so Hestia doesn't have a lot of "examples" or "info," per se, to go off of as she discovers herself.
> 
> Also trans rights are human rights & I am one very upset queer re: JKR's comments.

That August, Alecto taught Hestia and Flora the importance of their physical appearance.

“My mother beat it into me that I was hideous,” she said distantly. “Now you girls lucked out not lookin’ like your dad. But them other girls is gonna have doe-eyes and thick lips we just don’t have. That’s what make-up’s for.”

Alecto set up the girls’ vanity with a large quantity of beauty products in little crystal containers. Hestia grabbed a tube of a mystery paste and scrutinised it.

“There’s beauty charms and such, but they don’t last all day, and I hate the feeling of pointing a wand at my face. So you gotta learn how to apply make-up,” Alecto said.

It took about a week, a few crumbled swatches of eye shadow, and lots of yelling, but by the end Hestia and Flora had learnt the basics of decorating their eleven-year-old faces. Every morning, Hestia overlined her lips to make them look bigger and blinked the dryness out of her mascara-lidded eyes. She didn’t have anywhere to go yet. She wasn’t allowed anywhere. But this was the one thing Alecto acknowledged her being half-decent at. Flora tried a frosted lip one day, to which Alecto said, “That washes you out.” She turned to Hestia, who had mastered the rosy cheek-slash-dark lip look and said, “That’s your shade.”

“It’s like painting,” Hestia said one morning as she and Flora elbowed each other in the mirror. “You have to blend the colour.”

Flora gave her a grumpy look; her powder foundation was speckled asymmetrically across her face. The girls practised applying makeup to each other sometimes, especially when it came to making eyeliner match on both sides. Hestia was good at sitting still and trusting Flora’s work, but Flora grimaced over her face being handled. More than once, a streak of eyeliner went all the way out to her ear.

“You look cute!” Hestia said on the day Flora had finally mastered some techniques.

Flora looked quite disgruntled at her success.

“I mean, you’re cute anyway!” Hestia laughed.

Flora grew even more displeased.

“We’re identical, you bludger.”

“Oh, fine, be that way,” sighed Hestia.

Hestia didn’t mind the idea that she had to look good, because now she felt like she did. It gave her confidence for her upcoming trip to school. She had never had friends before, only Flora. She had never even had acquaintances. Nobody ever came to the house, and they never went to anyone else’s. When the family went to Diagon Alley, she would watch other people recognise one another and meet up, saying things like, “How’ve you been?” and “Good to see you!” Nobody ever came up to their family with those words. Hestia could understand that; she probably wouldn’t, either.

Amycus and Alecto had made it clear that they disliked Hogwarts. They sang praises for Durmstrang, the school they had been at for four years. Naturally, that only made Hestia more excited for Hogwarts. Anything those two disliked often ended up being something she _did_ like.

Two days before the girls would board the train, Amycus and Alecto called them into the parlour no one was allowed to use but them. Amycus swiped his wand across two seats, lifting the white covers into the air and folding them neatly. He set them atop a still-covered footstool and motioned for his nieces to do what normal people would term “make yourself at home.”

Hestia’s socks were delighted by the plush carpet. It was definitely a carpet that was rarely trampled upon. Above the hearth was a large portrait of her bob-haired, mahogany-lipped great-grandmother in a gold frame, with an important placard reading, “ _Tisiphone Carrow_.” Amycus and Alecto worshipped their grandmother as much as they hated their parents. Hestia had no substantial opinion about any of these dead people. The only family she knew were the only Carrows left.

Hestia relaxed into the scarcely-used chair. The upholstery had been laundered recently with hints of lilac. Flora sat up straight, trying to leave as little impression of her person in the room as possible.

“You girls leave for school in a couple days,” Amycus said, clearing his throat.

The girls nodded gratefully.

“It’s very important you make friends,” said Alecto.

“The right kinds o’ friends,” Amycus clarified.

“Yeah, the right kinds,” Alecto repeated. “Don’t talk to no Mudbloods. You can talk to half-bloods, but don’t touch ’em.”

“But make as many friends as you can,” Amycus instructed.

Alecto nodded at him and added, “Be nice to people of our blood. Don’t stir up trouble.”

Hestia shot a grin over to Flora, who wouldn’t be able to cause trouble even if she was paid to do it. Amycus cleared his throat again.

“There’s names you wanna be extra nice to. Any Yaxleys, Gibbons, Malfoys, Averys, Blacks—”

“The Blacks died out, Am,” Alecto whispered to him, as though it were a national tragedy. “Their women took their husbands’ names. Their last male’s in Azkaban.”

“Shit, that’s right,” he whispered back, then turned back to the girls. “All right, then, Mulcibers, Jugsons, er… I guess if there’s any Rowles—”

“If there’s any Rowles, be nice to them but don’t get cosy,” Alecto said closely. “Their family’s dread weird.”

Hestia grinned again. The Rowles couldn’t possibly be weirder than the people in front of her. Alecto tapped her lips thoughtfully and added:-

“Oh, but be nice to any Greengrasses, Wakelands, Springhouses, er, _ugh_ , Kipplings…”

“Kipplings got Squib blood, but they’re with the Greengrasses,” Amycus clarified.

Alecto nodded at his words and continued, “Greengrasses, Malfoys, and Selwyns practically control the country. Loads of money. Greengrasses are blood-traitors, but they’re only ever to see you two at your _best_ , you understand?”

“Yes,” said Flora, and Hestia rolled her eyes. Amycus and Alecto didn’t see her. They were busy trying to think of all the instructions to send the girls off with.

“Talk smarter,” Amycus noted.

“Yeah, talk real posh,” echoed Alecto. “Add ‘-g’s’ to the ends of your words. Don’t say ‘ain’t’ and ‘yeh’ and ‘ya’ or anything.”

“Say ‘aren’t’ and ‘you,’” Amycus emphasised.

Alecto wrung her hands and whispered back and forth with her brother. When they weren’t looking, Hestia tugged a string out of her sleeve and flicked it onto the perfect carpet.

“Well, now… You girls can hold your own, can’t you? Yeah. Strong witches. Good blood in you,” Amycus said with a quick nod.

“Great blood,” Alecto stressed.

Amycus’s voice became sterner:-

“If anyone asks, you trace your bloodline back to the sixth century. And yes, we’re older than the Peverells — _plus_ , the last of them bled into us. And yes, we have the documentation, but trust me, no one’s gonna argue with you.”

“Am… d’you think they’ll get bullies?” said Alecto quietly, and Amycus frowned.

“Bull—? Well, can’t be as bad as we did… ’Course them teachers are so incompetent…” he whispered back.

“I’ll wring their necks if they let it happen,” said Alecto with a sneer.

Amycus looked closely at each girl and said, “Don’t get in _no_ _fights_ over it. You’re gonna have to tell a teacher to stop it. Pick a teacher you like.”

Having never sat down, the older set of twins started pacing nervously about the room. Hestia’s chest tightened, wondering if they would suddenly change their minds about sending them to school at all.

“Don’t be invitin’ no friends over,” Amycus ordered.

“You can meet ’em in Diagon Alley in the summer if you’re good and get good marks,” Alecto specified.

“—and you tell us who they are first,” Amycus tacked on.

As they spoke, they started circling around each other like two large koi in a pond too small.

“Can’t be no Rowles,” circled Alecto.

“Can’t be no half-bloods neither,” circled Amycus.

“But otherwise,” circled Alecto.

“Yeah, make friends. It’s good for you,” circled Amycus.

“But stick together too,” Alecto said, wringing her hands.

“Yeah don’t be turnin’ on each other over stupid things,” Amycus said, cracking his knuckles.

They stopped their swimming and stared at each other, then nodded in unison.

“ _Accio suitcase_ ,” said Alecto, and the item in question came floating in from the kitchen.

“Now pay attention to this suitcase,” said Amycus, opening it in front of the girls. “This has all your first-aid in it and anything you’ll need if you get ill. There’s not a damn thing missin’ out of this here suitcase. Practically a whole apothecary. Just follow the dosage directions for everything — Hestia, even you know how to do that.”

Hestia raised her eyebrows at him and snorted. Alecto reached into one of the suitcase’s pockets and pulled out a small handbook.

“This is a book on counter-jinxes, right along in here. You run into any issue and you got everything you need, even Skele-Gro.”

“Now don’t be doing nothin’ that’s gonna call for Skele-Gro in the first place, mind,” said Amycus, and Alecto giggled.

“Now what’s so funny, Alliecat?” he asked her.

“Your face when you said that.”

“Well, I dunno what they’re gonna get up to in that big ol’ castle, do I?”

“It just looked like you was thinkin’ up mischief, Am.”

Hestia put her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her cheek in her fist. As soon as the furniture creaked under her weight, the girls were sent out of the room.

“I’m not gonna remember any of them rules tomorrow,” Hestia said on the stair.

“Any of _those_ rules,” said Flora, remembering them all.

They sat on the floor of Dad’s room to spend time with him before leaving. He was reclined in bed, reading a book as usual. Sometimes he read the same book twice in a month. Dad had never attended Hogwarts, so he couldn’t answer any of their curiosities about what it would be like. They showed their new wands and robes off to him. On the morning of their departure, they ran into his room to wake him up.

“I can’t go to the station, girls,” he said sadly. “I can’t Apparate. You lot are Apparating there, it’s quickest.”

“But—” Hestia said, tears in her eyes.

“No, Dad’s right,” Flora said. “If he can’t Apparate, he can’t Apparate. It’s dangerous to try if you can’t. I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Well, don’t be sorry for me,” he chuckled. “ _I’m_ sorry I can’t see you off.”

Hestia choked back tears. It wasn’t right to have to be seen off by Amycus and Alecto. She cracked Dad’s bedroom window to give him some fresh air and left before he would see her cry. It all confirmed what she had suspected. Dad was somehow disabled. Money was tight, sure, but whatever was wrong with him was why they _all_ had to live here. The problem was that Hestia couldn’t figure _how_ Dad was disabled or _what_ the problem was. Something mental? He always seemed physically fine, if a bit inert.

The girls found a private place to sit on the Hogwarts Express and didn’t bother to check to see if Amycus and Alecto were waving to them on the platform. They knew those two had already left.

“Flora, what’s really wrong with Dad? What kind of problem does he have?” Hestia asked, since Flora seemed to know everything.

But whatever was wrong with Dad was the one thing Flora didn’t know.

~

Hestia and Flora waited on tip-toes to be Sorted that night at the opening feast. The castle was grand, grander than they had imagined, yet all of their attention was on a tatty old hat. When worn, the hat Sorted students into one of four Houses. Hestia had been carrying around a brand-new worry for the past hour: _What if we end up in different Houses_?

Flora seemed like a Ravenclaw, which Hestia certainly wasn’t. Perhaps Flora would be a Slytherin, and Hestia would end up somewhere else. That would be yet another reason for Amycus and Alecto to chastise her. The expectation was that they would _both_ be Slytherins, but the House itself wasn’t stressed nearly as much as getting friendly with other purebloods was. Hestia didn’t care what House they were in as long as they were together.

The letter-C’s were up next. There went a Ravenclaw, a Gryffindor, and another Ravenclaw. Then the old witch holding the roster squinted at her parchment. She adjusted her spectacles. She turned round to look at the Headmaster. He gave her a big old shrug.

“Carrow, Flora!” she called.

Flora immediately marched up to the stool with a stiff upper lip. The hat sat upon her head for about a second.

“SLYTHERIN!”

The Slytherin table applauded her, though their eyes didn’t match their hands. Flora did not take a seat, as she was waiting for Hestia. It made Hestia even more nervous.

 _Well now I HAVE to be in Slytherin_ , she thought.

“Carrow, Hestia!” the witch called.

Hestia shuffled up to the stool with her shoulders nearly up to her ears and took a seat. Her hands were clasped tightly, and she looked up to the Enchanted Ceiling to see if there were any pretend stars to wish upon. The hat went over her head.

“…Slytherin!”

Hestia’s breath of relief came as quickly as a deflating balloon. She ran over to her sister, locked hands with her, and jumped. Flora did not jump.

“Thank goodness. Let’s find a seat.”

Hestia was hoping to eat, but she had to wait for everyone to be Sorted first. _This could take forever_ , she thought as a snooty-looking girl named Diane Carter sauntered past her.

“Clarke, Rhiannon!”

Talk about taking forever. This Clarke girl wasn’t getting any answer from the Sorting Hat. They would never get through the alphabet. Hestia’s stomach was miserable. After more silence, Hestia craned her neck to look at the House-less girl and hopefully give her the hint to hurry herself along. But as soon as she shot the girl a glare, she felt bad for doing so. Rhiannon Clarke looked just as nervous as Hestia had been a handful of minutes ago.

Rhiannon had strawberry-blonde curls rolling copiously down her shoulders and big, dark brown eyes that stood out against her face. Freckles were sprinkled all across her round nose and cheeks. Hestia couldn’t help but think of her aunt’s words: “ _doe-eyes and thick lips that we just don’t have_.”

The word Hestia was looking for was “pretty.” But it was a hard word to find when Rhiannon’s face was touched with anxiety, and — no, Hestia wasn’t making it up — Rhiannon was malnourished. She hid her body in a robe that had not been bespoken. When the hat _finally_ Sorted Rhiannon, it put her into Slytherin. Her black tie magically became green and silver, and the House coat of arms embroidered itself above her chest. Hestia instantly budged up to give Rhiannon a place to sit, to invite her, to _make friends_ …

But Rhiannon went and sat with Diane Carter, who was so pretty that she made Hestia feel ugly. But Hestia could already tell based on Diane’s mannerisms that she was a bitch.

Having been perfectly isolated their whole lives, Hestia and Flora found it impossible to fit themselves into conversations at the Slytherin table. Indeed, nobody seemed to want to go the extra length to include them, either. Hestia talked to Flora the whole time. Sometimes Flora even talked back.

“It’s looking like my baby sister won’t be able to come,” said a blonde girl in a dramatic voice. “She would be Sorted _next_ year, you see, but her magic is utterly too weak and unpredictable… Yes, yes, it’s a shame, _I’ve_ tried to help her along the way… No, poor thing most likely has to be home-schooled. I’ll miss her _dearly_ …”

“That’s a Greengrass,” Flora said under her breath, nodding at the blonde drama queen.

“Yeah, I can tell by the _silk brocade cape_ she’s got on,” Hestia mocked.

A pug-faced, brunette witch next to the Greengrass said, “Oh, Daphne, I’m sorry. That sounds like such an embarrassment.”

“Oh, embarrassment for Astoria, perhaps,” sighed Daphne. “Maman and Daddy are going to do _everything_ they can for her. Who knows if she’ll _ever_ keep up with _me_ , poor dear…”

“Keep up with _you_ , Daphne? Shouldn’t be too hard,” said a wizard who looked just as snobbish as Daphne. “She might get ahead of you now that you’ve said all that.”

“Oh, Malfoy, talk to the hand!” said Daphne, holding up her pink-manicured nails.

“A Malfoy, then,” Flora pointed out. “I know they said to talk to any Malfoys, but I’m not sure I want to.”

“They all look so spoilt over there,” Hestia noted.

“’Cause they _are_.”

A tall, dark, and un-handsome sort of wizard slinked alongside the Slytherin table and honed in on Daphne Greengrass’s silk brocade cape.

“That is not part of your uniform, Miss Greengrass. Remove it,” he said in a nasally voice.

Daphne Greengrass put on all affectations she could muster.

“Oh, but _Professor Snape_ , this garment needs special care, and I’ve left my uniform robes in my trunk. I wasn’t thinking, Professor. This is what I wore on the train, and I just forgot…”

“It was announced on the train to change into your uniform for those not already wearing it,” Professor Snape bit.

“Well, you see, Pansy and I were in such an _engaging_ little conversation that I fear I neglected to hear the announcement… Oh, Professor, forgive me this once, please… There’s only twenty minutes of dinner left…”

“If I see you out of uniform tomorrow, you can expect your showy silk cape to get stained whether by accident or _not_ ,” Professor Snape responded, earning Hestia’s esteem.

After dinner, the twins were placed in a situation where other people did have to talk to them. They had three other dormmates: Zoe Accrington, Scarlett Lympsham, and Alex Sykes. None of those names were on the Sacred Twenty-Eight list; in fact, only Alex had a pureblood surname at all.

“At least no Rowles or Greengrasses,” Flora whispered.

Hestia followed her roommates’ conversation closely so that she would know what to say. Zoe was from London. Scarlett was from Chichester. Alex was from Sykes Fell, where her family had lived for centuries.

“We’re from Cromer,” Hestia said.

“Cromer… Cromer… Oh, we holidayed there once. Have you heard the ghost bells? Or seen the Black Shuck?” Zoe asked.

“Er, no, actually.”

“Me neither!” said Zoe, making Hestia feel a bit better about her own witchiness.

Zoe had an older brother who was already on his own and a baby sister who was five years younger. Scarlett had three step-siblings. Alex had an older sister in Hufflepuff.

“It’s just us,” said Hestia.

“Who’s the older?” asked Scarlett.

“Er, me,” Hestia said.

“By twenty-three minutes,” Flora said.

Zoe’s father worked in the Obliviator Headquarters at the Ministry, and her mother was part of the Minister’s staff. Scarlett’s mother worked for the Wizarding Wireless Network, and her father was a landlord over several lettings in Carkitt Market. Alex’s parents were both successful dragonologists.

 _Our dad’s mysteriously disabled_ , Hestia thought, but if he were truly disabled, wouldn’t Amycus and Alecto be the first people to collect (or steal) his pension?

“Our Dad works from home,” Flora lied.

The next subject was an especially tricky one to navigate: boys. Hestia couldn’t even track how they had got on such a topic; Scarlett had said something or other about how cute Montel Davis was when she spotted him at dinner. And the next thing Hestia knew, Zoe was asking, “Have you ever kissed a boy?”

 _Kissed_? Hestia could hardly imagine touching the face of a boy with her hands, let alone her lips.

“No, I haven’t kissed a boy… yet,” Alex laughed. “I was _born_ a boy, but I haven’t kissed anybody yet! But now that you mention Montel Davis…”

“Oh no you don’t! He’s mine,” Scarlett insisted. “What about you two, then?”

“Merlin, no,” Hestia and Flora said in unison, then erupted in sniggers.

“Well, I have!” announced Zoe.

“What — your pet toad?” Scarlett teased.

“No! It was Cosmo Selwyn. He was over for a party my family had once.”

“I don’t believe you kissed a Selwyn!” said Alex.

“If you see him, you ask him then!” Zoe said.

“He’s _a boy_ ,” Alex said, “he’ll deny it to the grave.”

Hestia was certain that Flora would jump in on the conversation at any moment, leaving her the last one out. But Flora lacked enthusiasm just the same. However, even Hestia got a bit interested when Scarlett cut and folded a piece of parchment into a four-point fortune-teller.

“What are you writing on the inside?” Alex asked, trying to see over Scarlett’s shoulder.

“No peeking! You have to play the game. All right you go first. Which colour: red, yellow, blue, or green?”

Hestia watched intently so she would know what to do when it was her turn.

“Green — I just got Sorted in Slytherin, didn’t I?” said Alex.

“G – R – E – E – N. All right. Pick a number.”

“Eight.”

“One – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight. Pick a number.”

“Hmmmm…. Eight.”

“Pff! One – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight. One more.”

“Eight.”

“All right, all right! Here’s your fortune. ‘You will find true love… in the House… of GRYFFINDOR!”

“NOOOOO!” Alex wailed in hilarity.

“Well, that’s what you get for making me fold this so many times. All right, Flora, you’re up,” said Scarlett. “Pick a colour.”

“Blue,” said Flora.

“B – L – U – E. Pick a number!”

“Three,” said Flora.

“One – two – three. And a number.”

“One,” said Flora.

“Okay, last number.”

“Two,” said Flora.

“Your first kiss will be… on accident!” Scarlett yelped.

Flora nodded, seeming to think that any kiss on her part would be an accident.

“Hestia, your turn! What colour?”

“Green,” said Hestia.

“G – R – E – E – N.”

“Four!”

“One – two – three – four. All right!”

“Eight.”

“One – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight. And now?”

“One,” said Hestia.

“Your true love will cross oceans for you,” Scarlett said in a mysterious voice and the other girls went, “ _Oooooo_.”

That night before bed, Hestia tried to picture what her ocean-crossing true love might look like. It was quite a task for her imagination, but she kept imagining someone with a lot of tattoos. And a lot of curves. Her blush warmed her pillowcase.

~

“That’s a lot of make-up for girls their age.”

That comment came from Professor McGonagall.

“It’s a wonder what sorts of things their mother must be tellin’ them.”

The reply came from Professor Sprout.

“Well, you see…” Professor McGonagall said with a little cough, “they don’t have a mother listed in their emergency contacts.”

“Aw, the poor things,” tutted Professor Sprout. “Hestia’s really thriving in my class.”

“Yes, and Flora’s thriving in mine… but I do think it’s best we watch and support them all we can… You see, the only contacts we have in the Headmaster’s office are…” her voice dropped very, very low, “Amycus and Alecto.”

Professor Sprout gasped so deeply she sounded like a pipe organ that had gone out of tune — “ _No_!”

“Yes,” said Professor McGonagall, wetting her lips. “They are listed as their aunt and uncle.”

“But those girls are no trouble, no trouble at all!” Professor Sprout chattered.

“Well… the Book of Admittance has a name — and Pomona, don’t quote me on this — _Aban_ Carrow, but we’ve never had anyone by that name actually enter our doors.”

“Well, any name close? Any other Carrows?” Professor Sprout wondered.

“No. The very last Carrows here were… well, _the two_ ,” McGonagall said closely.

“Perhaps this Aban and his wife are deceased,” responded the other witch sadly. “Oh, and those poor girls… stuck under the same roof as… as _both_!”

A third gossiper came ambling by, this one being Madam Pince, the librarian.

“Are you by any chance talking about the Carrow twins…?” she whispered.

“Well, out of concern—” Professor Sprout tried to cover.

“That Aban Carrow you mentioned, he’s real,” Pince whispered, and the two instructors put their hands to their falling chests. “I have the Carrow articles in my newspaper archives — not for general perusal, of course — but it was stated he was five years old at the time of the parents’ deaths.”

“Oh, how awful,” McGonagall groaned. “Now… five years old in 1968 would place him at nine and twenty, then.”

“He must’ve had those twins at eighteen,” Pince calculated. “And did you say they’re all…?”

“Yes, all at the same address, the house where the parents died.”

“He must’ve never got on his own two feet, that Aban,” Sprout said. “Makes sense, poor bloke. Only five when his parents died. Being under the care of such… ugh… And of course, he had his babies young. Oh, I do feel sorry for those girls and their dad.”

Hestia was tired of feeling sorry for herself, but she did feel sorry for Dad. She and Flora stood in a thin passage hidden behind a tapestry dedicated to the Peverell family, eavesdropping to hear what their teachers truly thought of them. Hestia was content to harbour the grudge privately, but Flora went to the library the following Monday and got into a row with Madam Pince over letting her see the “Carrow articles.”

As far as the story went, after Flora said, “If you can run your filthy mouth about my family, I’m entitled to see the news archives about them,” she was sent to the Headmaster’s office. Hestia wouldn’t know if that account was true or not, because Flora wouldn’t speak about the event at all.

With a stony silent Flora, Hestia had practically nobody to talk to. Her roommates had gone from occasionally talking about boys to _always_ talking about boys. Hestia found the topic exclusionary, and with absolutely nothing to say on the matter, she eventually did end up being excluded from ordinary conversations as well.

There was another clique that didn’t always talk about boys per se, but the problem was that they typically made fun of people over nothing. Their ringleader was Diane Carter, and she was flanked by Olivia Shardlow, Imogen Stretton, and Tracey Nettlebed.

Rhiannon Clarke tagged along with them to all classes and meals, so even though she seemed nice, she became unapproachable when surrounded by the clique. Hestia wished Rhiannon would come and talk to her instead. More than once, Hestia had heard the other girls talking about how impoverished Rhiannon was behind her back. They mock-imitated her accent by putting grapes in their mouths when she went to the lavatory. Hestia wished they’d all choke.

It was this wish that brought Hestia to the Library to read up on jinxes she wasn’t supposed to cast. To her surprise, Flora was there with a look of shameless protest across her face. Hestia would have been too scared to face Madam Pince again if she were Flora (she had even feared being _mistaken_ for Flora by the librarian). But Flora couldn’t care less. She did not have any newspapers in front of her but rather a large stack of volumes that she was apparently browsing to decide which ones to rent: _Human Magical Biology: Vol. I, Lemures and How to Oust Them, Magical Moral Perspective, Moral Theories of the World,_ and _Wizards Are from Neptune, Witches Are from Saturn_.

“H-Hi, Flora,” Hestia whispered, unsure of whether they should be in the Library.

“Hello, Hestia. The Herbology section is in 500-599. The Potions section is in 600-699.”

That wasn’t what Hestia had come in for, but it was good to know.

“Er… do you know where there’s books on, er… erm…”

“On what?”

“Like, jinxes and—”

“Oh. That would be 950-960.”

“How’d you memorise all this?”

“Been here all day.”

“Still.”

Hestia milled about the bookshelves, taking out more volumes than she could ever hope to read within the lending period. She retrieved _Jinxes for the Jinxed_ , _Prank Jinxes_ , and _How to Survive First Year_ straightaway. She did end up going to the Herbology section, retrieving _The Strangest Magical Plants and Their Properties_ before going to the Potions section. No matter how hard she looked, there wasn’t any book called _How to Prepare Venoms for Your Aunt and Uncle’s Black Market Trade._

There was, however, a red book titled, _Introduction to the Magic of Love Potions_. Hestia ran her fingers down the spine to feel the gilded lettering. She didn’t want caught with that book in her arms, though, so she hurried off and ended up in an even worse section of the Library that seemed to deal with… self-help?

 _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_ was soon in her hands as she looked over her shoulder. It would be funny, she thought. It wasn’t like any boys in her class were waiting right behind her for the copy. Boys didn’t talk about girls nearly as much as the girls talked about boys. Hestia sent her other books over to the desk where Flora sat, but she opened the last one in the safety of the aisle. It had twelve chapters. Chapter One was called “Being Kindly.”

 _If you want witches_ , the book read, _you must give up your boyhood days of constantly teasing the girls you fancy. A few small jokes are all right every once in a while, but you can’t have pretty girls thinking that all you want to do is make fun of them. No more chasing girls with jinxes or putting slugs in their bags. The key to winning a witch’s heart begins with being friendly. You must first learn what that means. Don’t expect to tell a girl that you like her eyes and end up in her pants._

Hestia gasped quietly. She hadn’t even experienced her boyhood days of teasing girls yet, much less expecting to “end up” in their “pants.” Was this book _bad_? She had to fight down her giggles. After consuming the entirety of Chapter One whilst standing, Hestia sat down in the aisle, hoping no one would notice her. The book was obviously written for boys, but that didn’t mean a girl couldn’t read it, right? Where else was she going to read something so hilarious? Sometimes, she even stumbled across useful information about making friends in general!

A few chapters later were dedicated to going on dates. So not only was it written for boys, it was written for older boys.

 _DO NOT APPARATE YOUR DATE TO YOUR DATING SPOT,_ the book cautioned. _IF SHE GETS A SPLINCHING INJURY, SHE WILL NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN_.

It did, however, advise readers to do something exciting and appealing to the average girl before trying to do anything too fancy.

 _If you drag her along to a Quidditch game, it would be a good idea to at least take her for a broomride afterwards (meaning on a broom)_. _If she suggests seeing a play, the author strongly advises you to sit quietly and not complain. Put your arm around her if the seating allows it, but do NOT attempt to grab her chest. She will find you tactless and crude. Not only that: she will tell all her friends, so they won’t date you, either_.

Hestia kept trying to check over her shoulder for anyone who might spot her reading such ornery content, but since she was leaned against the bookshelf, the only giggling at her expense came from the semi-sentient books behind her.

“Oh, hush,” she scolded the books.

Some of the later chapters started getting weird. Hestia’s eyes widened over at least seven euphemisms. There were at least twenty more topics of interest that went right over her head. She found it all unbearably funny and simply had to share some of these things with Flora. It’d been so long since Flora had laughed.

“Flora, read this sentence,” Hestia whispered, handing Flora the book with a finger placed over a particularly dirty passage.

Flora scrunched her nose into more wrinkles than a deflated Quaffle.

“Hestia, what are you doing with a book like that?” she whispered.

“It’s funny. It’s trying to tell boys how to date girls.”

“That’s more than _dating_ ,” Flora said, struggling to contain her voice in a whisper. “Put that rubbish back.”

“Oh, what’s the harm,” chuckled Hestia. “Look, look… what’s this even _mean_?”

Reluctantly, Flora peered at Hestia’s book again and rolled her eyes. Drawing a long, disappointed breath, she thumbed open _Human Magical Biology_ and tapped her finger on a diagram that made Hestia blush.

“Mine doesn’t look a thing like that,” Hestia whispered in Flora’s ear.

Flora swatted her away dramatically.

“Of course not. This is a drawing of someone fully grown,” she hissed.

Hestia could no longer contain her laughter:-

“I meant mine didn’t come with _labels_ all over it.”

She had to cup her hands over her giddy mouth and wander off to a far corner lest Madam Pince would hear her.

“Take this with you,” Flora insisted, Levitating the dating advice book over to Hestia.

Hestia had forgotten where the thing had come from, so she had to place it on a return rack and run away so as not to be incriminated. What she had read in there ought to get her through at least two months of rotten jokes.

During her next Flying class, Rhiannon Clarke was right next to her. She had no hat even though it was lightly sprinkling, and Hestia inferred that she couldn’t afford one. But this way, she got to see the way the rain plastered Rhiannon’s wavy fringe to her forehead and frizzed her big curls.

“Rhiannon, right?” Hestia said.

Rhiannon turned with those big dark eyes that sized Hestia up.

“Thas me,” she said with a voice thicker than caramel chews.

They watched Curtis Evercreech struggle to get off the ground.

“Think my broomstick’s longer than his,” Hestia whispered.

Rhiannon laughed through her nose. Aha! So she liked these kinds of jokes.

“He looks like he’s tryna be a stripper,” Rhiannon whispered back.

She had an accent that avoided its “H’s” at _all_ costs. Hestia didn’t know what a stripper was, but she somehow remembered the answer when Rhiannon asked her for her name.

“Er, Hestia.”

And when Rhiannon said it back, it sounded like “Ess-cha.”

 _Ess-cha_ , Hestia thought that evening at dinner. _Ess-cha_ , she thought, staring at her dark ceiling. But when they were both giggling about “swish and flicker” a few Charms classes later, Rhiannon had morphed the name into “Ess-chia.”

 _Ess-chia_ , Hestia tried to get used to her new name. Rhiannon’s tie was constantly coming undone. Hestia saw Rhiannon take a hair grip from her mess of a ponytail and stick it in the satiny fabric to hold it in place. _Ess-chia_.

They didn’t talk much, so Hestia’s task of making friends still went unsatisfied. On the eleventh of October, a fifth-year named Ansel Greengrass went about the Slytherins selling pumpkin lollies to benefit St Mungo’s Hospital in preparation for the “influx of Hallowe’en medical incidents.” Hestia and Flora had not been given any allowance — they hadn’t even been able to get sweets from the trolley on the Hogwarts Express — but Hestia still had an idea. She consulted her first-aid suitcase and pulled out one of the valuable Blood-Replenishing Potions.

“Surely that’s worth a pumpkin lolly. And the hospital will need that just as much as money,” Hestia said, handing it to Ansel Greengrass in hopes of making a trade.

Ansel gave Hestia a look of distrust and rolled the phial in her hands. She had the audacity to uncork and sniff it, and when the whiff made her gag, she knew the potion was real. Ansel ended up allowing the trade. She gave Hestia a bright orange tag to address her giftee. She tried to keep her scrawl neat as she filled in the lines.

To: Rhiannon Clarke

House and Year: Slytherin, 1st year

From:    


_Ess-chia_ , Hestia thought with a strange lump in her throat. She wrote “Hestia C.” on the blank line because people tended to act like her last name was a swear word. On Hallowe’en morning, Ansel Greengrass distributed the pumpkin lollies to their recipients (Draco Malfoy had got three from Pansy Parkinson alone). Neither Hestia nor Flora got any, but Rhiannon approached them with a grin.

“Oi, thanks for the punkin!” Rhiannon said to Flora, having mixed them up.

Hestia’s shoulders slumped. The teachers mixed them up on the daily, but she wished that she was recognisable in Rhiannon’s eyes. Her face turned a shy, angry red. It wasn’t Rhiannon’s fault, though.

“I’m Flora,” said Flora in her Flora voice. “That’s Hestia.”

“Oh! That’s me bad. Anyways, thanks, Estia!”

It wasn’t Ess-cha or Ess-chia anymore. It was _Estia_. And that was as close to Hestia that it was ever going to get. Hestia settled into her final name with ease, but things at school would soon become anything but easy.


	4. October, 1992 - May, 1993

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song rec:  
> ◈ [A Pillar of Salt by The Thermals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAbRUjuFkRk)

> It began on Hallowe’en night. Hestia hadn’t seen it, but there had been bloody writing on the wall saying, “ _The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware._ ” The caretaker’s cat was what they called “Petrified,” which didn’t make any sense, and when Flora said, “ _cat-_ aleptic,” Hestia didn’t get the joke.

There was no joke to be had, though, because the Petrifications continued. The next one came in early November: a Gryffindor Muggle-born named Colin Creevey lay in the Hospital Wing, frozen stiff, next to the cat bed. Ten days later, a Hufflepuff Muggle-born named Justin was found Petrified behind the Gryffindor House Ghost. Even the ghost was Petrified: completely motionless, speechless, and unresponsive.

Though they didn’t want to, Hestia and Flora went home for Christmas holiday just to avoid whatever was Petrifying humans, animals, and ghosts alike. Suspended animation sounded worse than Amycus and Alecto. At least at the time it had.

The girls were pleasantly surprised to meet their father at King’s Cross Station but less excited about travelling by the Portkey he had. When they requested to go to Diagon Alley with him first, he said no. The Portkey of their father’s wallet was a rougher trip than their aunt and uncle’s Apparition, but at least he was the first person they saw instead of them.

The elder twins had apparently had a last hurrah before the girls’ return home. They weren’t around when the girls came in, but the kitchen sink was uncharacteristically messy. They had their absinthe spoons, glasses, and bottles everywhere. It looked like they had even indulged in rolling some betony cigarettes. The spicy, earthy smell lingered in the air.

 _Good to know you missed us so dearly_ , Hestia thought.

Dad had missed them, at least. He asked them all about school. Hestia and Flora both dressed the story up for him a bit, saying that their marks were a tad better than they were, and that they had made “a couple friends.”

Hestia and Dad were thinking of what to make for supper when the elder twins arrived for breakfast. Amycus shoved Dad away from the cupboards and put on a pot of coffee. Alecto slumped in the chair across Flora and rubbed her brow.

Hestia was just starting to talk about the Petrifications, but she knew by the look on Alecto’s face that she would be forcibly Silenced if she kept talking. The smell of coffee overpowered the betony. Amycus slammed a cup of it in front of Alecto.

“I ain’t _that_ hungover, Am.”

“Drink it.”

“It’s too blasted bitter,” Alecto complained.

“‘It’s too blasted bitter,’” Amycus mimicked in a high voice.

Alecto sent a spell over to Amycus that made him jump with a yelp. He turned round with a laugh big enough to shatter his grumpiness. But his laughter died once the Heir of Slytherin conversation continued between Dad and Flora.

“What’s this about an heir of Slytherin? What the bloody hell are you sayin’?”

“That’s what was written on the wall. ‘Enemies of the heir, beware.’ And there’s been two students Petrified, a cat, and a ghost,” said Flora.

Amycus and Alecto shared a look.

“Well, enemies of any Slytherin would be Mudbloods,” Alecto said quietly as Amycus poured the milk in her cereal.

“I don’t want no talk of no Heir of Slytherin,” Amycus said crossly, using the last of the milk in his own cereal (Hestia and Dad would have to change their supper plans).

Dad spoke up in concern, “Well, if there’s students ending up in the Hospital Wi—”

“They’ll be fine,” Amycus snapped. “Some sort of Mudblood illness.”

That was easy for him to say. He hadn’t been there to see it! There were dead chickens all over Hagrid’s coop and frozen people in the Hospital Wing!

“What if it gets us… by mistake?” Hestia worried aloud.

“Mistake‽” Amycus shouted. “Are you tellin’ me the magic in your veins is a _mistake_ , Hestia Carrow‽ That you’re weak enough for some whatever-heir-thing to mistake you as a Mudblood‽ We’ll send you right on back to school tomorrow to test your magic out!”

Hestia cowered away from the spit flying out of him.

“Now take your nonsense to your room — your whinging’s gonna make your aunt’s headache worse!”

“Oh, as if your shouting isn’t,” Hestia grumbled as she and Flora stood to leave.

She was seen out by a painful smack of a hex on her back. As they trudged up the staircase, they could hear Amycus and the perfectly-fine Alecto talking it over.

“If them Mudbloods are freezin’ up like that… ain’t that what happens when you look at a basilisk in a mirror or somethin’?” Alecto guessed.

“Basso-lisk?” Amycus asked, half-yawning.

“Yeah, y’know, that thing you get when you hatch a chicken egg under a toad,” said Alecto, yawning the other half.

“Aw, Allie, that’s just how Mum and Dad made Aban!” Amycus said snidely, and Alecto wheezed with laughter.

Dad, who hadn’t stuck up for himself, came upstairs with supper for the girls an hour later. They all three dined in the girls’ bedroom to stay away from the other two.

Winter was the same as it was every year. Amycus and Alecto spent all their time waxing poetic down memory lane about their grandmother’s Yule celebrations, and none of their time having a celebration of their own. The only decorations were the paper snowflakes Hestia, Flora, and Dad cut to string in their windows.

“Mine are pretty ugly,” Dad chuckled. “Give me some of yours, Hestia.”

“You can have _two_ to replace the really wonky ones.”

Hestia tried to string her snowflakes evenly, so that Amycus wouldn’t come tearing them down once he saw them. Her snowflakes stayed up until Yule. She must have done it right.

Suspiciously, no attacks had occurred at Hogwarts during Christmas holiday. That was why when the students returned, Professor Snape, the Head of Slytherin, interviewed all of his students. Today was Hestia and Flora’s turn. Professor Snape’s office was stranger than any other teacher’s. He had jars of pickled animal organs and herbs for potionmaking lined on the shelves behind him. Hestia wasn’t grossed out — she loved potions — but she was paying much more attention to the cool jars than the conversation.

“Tell me about your family.”

Well, that was the worst question anyone could ask. Hestia wanted to say, “Why don’t you go ask McGonagall and her friends?” She let Flora do the talking.

“We aren’t the heirs of Slytherin,” Flora said.

Snape raised his eyebrows into his greasy hair.

“To which other families are you related? Perhaps that will help me decide exactly _how_ related to Slytherin you are…”

Flora answered proudly, “Our mother was a Blodwyn. The largest pure-blood house in Wales.”

“M-hm, and what about your grandmother?” Snape asked.

Flora skipped a generation and said, “Our great-grandmother married a Karkaroff. He took her name. But he was a Karkaroff. No Slytherin connection.”

“M-hm,” said Snape disinterestedly. “And what about any Rosiers?”

“Rosiers? No,” said Flora.

(The Rosiers were rich).

“Then to whom are you related, Miss Carrow?”

Flora straightened her back and said, “We have connections with the Fawleys. And the Borgins… that is, the pure-blood branch of the Borgins. And some of the Burkes.”

“Any, ah, Sayres?”

“No,” said Flora.

“Any Gaunts?”

“No.”

“I once heard you were connected to the Peverells.”

“We are, Professor. Our house predates the House of Peverell _and_ succeeds it,” said Flora importantly.

“Well, Miss Carrow, the Peverells are related to the Gaunts,” Snape said slickly, and Flora started tapping her foot. “I don’t expect you to know your entire genealogy, but I would appreciate you not telling me _bare-faced lies_.”

Flora swallowed hard and clenched her jaw. Hestia thought she would have to talk next, but the problem was she had never read her family’s pedigree books. Nor had she paid any attention to Amycus and Alecto’s stories about their family history. The only thing helpful Hestia had to say was, “We’re not the ones sending a monster after everyone.”

“Very nice, Miss Hestia, as I’m certain everyone in the school would say the same thing regardless of their involvement,” said Snape.

“But we can’t speak Parseltongue!” Flora interjected. “That Potter boy — he spoke it in front of everyone! It’s a wonder why he wasn’t taken to the Ministry straightaway!”

“As much as I would like for Potter to be removed from our premises, he was here for the holiday, and there have been no incidents,” Snape said reluctantly.

“Naturally, that’s so he can make himself look innocent! Now that everyone’s back, he’ll start up again! We aren’t the heirs of Slytherin!” Flora exclaimed.

“Look at me, Flora,” Snape said severely, and he shot her a glare so harsh that Flora recoiled. He shot the same look to Hestia. It felt nasty, but he seemed satisfied that they were innocent now. He sent them along. Flora flipped her hair and said, “I hate this place.”

“It’s here or home,” Hestia shrugged.

She liked Hogwarts. She got full, hot meals at a large table and didn’t have to be around her aunt and uncle. It would be nice if she had more friends and people weren’t getting Petrified, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Hestia spent the next few months coming up with excuses to talk to Rhiannon Clarke. Only five percent of those excuses seemed to work. Rhiannon was always setting her cauldron up next to Olivia Shardlow in Potions, and she sat with Diane Carter in Astronomy. She went to Quidditch games with that same group. The closest Hestia ever got to having a solid conversation was when Rhiannon asked her for the answers to Transfiguration homework. That really hurt.

Hestia retreated into herself after that. It would be her and Flora, the way it always was. That was fine. It wasn’t exciting, different, or social, but it was fine. She loved her sister, and any friend of hers would have to be a friend of Flora’s anyway. Flora had stopped making effort to make friends; even Hestia recognised that Flora’s conversation skills were non-existent. It almost felt like the mystery monster had given up its attacks when two Muggle-born girls were suddenly Petrified in early May.

“Why aren’t the teachers doing anything about this?” Hestia complained. “At this point, I’ll bet the heir of Slytherin _is_ a teacher!”

As part of an effort to look like they were doing something, the Ministry sacked Headmaster Dumbledore, leaving McGonagall in charge. That did nothing to help, because on the twenty-fourth of May, there was another attack. This attack was different from the others. There was no Petrification. It happened before lunchtime, right after Hestia’s D.A.D.A. class had been dismissed.

There had been one student left behind, a student who had dropped her books in the corridor. Montel Davis was the last person with her; he had helped to pick up her books before running off to lunch.

That girl didn’t walk as fast as Montel. Some said there were chunks of her arm in pools of blood in the corridor. Her name?

Rhiannon Clarke.

Several people had heard Rhiannon scream. The Heads of Houses had got up instantly, bravely running right towards the sound. Hestia had seen Snape run to the Hospital Wing with the girl in his arms. She remembered his words exactly:

“— and this venom is unlike any I’ve ever seen. Had I not procured phoenix tears a fortnight ago, Minerva, she’d already be gone—”

Word spread like weeds. Rhiannon Clarke had been the first living person attacked who wasn’t Muggle-born. She had also been the first Slytherin. Hestia overheard a few Gryffindors murmuring anxiously to each other moments after the disaster.

“Merlin, when I said all the Slytherins were safe, I didn’t mean for this to start happening…”

“It’s not like you jinxed it, Lee. How were we supposed to know, anyway?”

Another Gryffindor in the crowd asked, “Why would someone going by the ‘Heir of Slytherin’ attack their own Slytherins?”

“Unless the Heir knows something about that raggedy Clarke girl that we don’t!” shouted Xander Lofthouse, an older Slytherin.

“What, you really think she’s a Mudblood?” Marcus Flint asked.

“Could be! She’s been claiming to be half-blooded, but I don’t know of any Clarkes. And who are her parents, anyway?” Lofthouse snorted.

“Come to think of it, she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on in class half the time,” said Tracey Nettlebed, one of Rhiannon’s own roommates.

“Do you think she lied to us? Do you think we’ve been rooming with a _Mudblood_?” Imogen Stretton said, aghast.

“Why don’t you shut it!” a Gryffindor shouted over. “She’s half-dead if you haven’t noticed! Your professor just ran past here — we saw the blood!”

“If she’s a Mudblood, a LYING Mudblood no less, she deserves to die!” said Imogen Stretton. “I’m telling Mother what happened. It’s a good thing that monster sniffed her out!”

“EVERYONE TAKE YOUR SEATS BACK IN THE GREAT HALL!” Professor Sprout scolded on her way past the crowd.

And everyone did. Everyone except Hestia, Flora, and Montel Davis.

“Hestia, come on, let’s go,” said Flora, tugging on her arm.

“I don’t wanna go in there with those people,” Hestia scowled. “Do you think she’s gonna make it?”

“Merlin, I hope,” Montel cut in. “She was only about a hallway behind me! I just saw her. I can’t believe I didn’t hear that thing… it really does sneak up…”

“Let’s go, Hestia. I don’t want to be out here if that thing’s creeping about.”

“But Rhiannon—”

“It’s already done, Hestia. You can’t do anything,” Flora said sternly. “You can’t help.”

Hestia and Montel looked at each other sadly and followed Flora back to the Great Hall, which was louder than ever before. Nobody could decide whether it was the first attack on a half-blood, or if Rhiannon was the first and only Muggle-born in Slytherin. People seemed to be trending towards the second option. Some Slytherins even said that Rhiannon must have been _the_ target in the first place. The monster must have awakened because it _knew_ its House had been polluted.

“That explains why everyone was Petrified except her. It bit her. It was trying to get rid of the Mudblood in Slytherin!” said Pansy Parkinson.

The phrase “Mudblood in Slytherin” went round so many times that afternoon that Marcus Flint’s group decided to shorten it to “Slytherin’s Blot.” So Rhiannon Clarke didn’t even get a name anymore.

All the Greengrasses and their relatives were pulled from school that evening. They weren’t the only students to go home, either. Petrifications could be cured with Mandrake Draughts, but there weren’t enough phoenix tears to save everybody from mysterious Dark venom.

Hestia couldn’t focus in any of her classes. The people surrounding her really felt like Rhiannon deserved to die.

 _So what if she’s from Muggles_ , Hestia thought angrily. _She’s just a person. They’re talking about her like she’s not a person_!

Hestia made up her mind to visit Rhiannon Clarke in the Hospital Wing that evening. Flora protested high and low, fearing that anyone who associated with those who were attacked might be attacked, too. Hestia kept walking. Flora kept protesting about what their aunt and uncle would say. And that made Hestia walk even faster.

“You weren’t even friends with her!” Flora finally exclaimed.

Flora was right. Hestia didn’t have any friends.

“You can either come with me or let me walk alone down the corridors. Because I’m going either way,” said Hestia.

Flora grudgingly tagged along to the Hospital Wing. It was located behind large double-doors at the end of a wide corridor full of windows. Hestia assumed the door would be unlocked. She was wrong. So she knocked.

“I don’t like this,” said Flora.

“Shut it. She almost died.”

“She might have already,” whispered Flora.

“Shut it! Don’t say that,” Hestia hissed.

The door viewer unlatched, and the pair of eyes behind them fell upon Hestia. The eyes were the only thing Hestia could see, but she could tell they were not happy.

“What do you need?” asked the Matron.

“We’re here to see Rhiannon. Rhiannon Clarke,” Hestia said.

“No, sorry, no visitors are permitted at this time.”

“Can I come back tomorrow, then?” Hestia requested.

“Visitors have been prohibited since the previous attacks. There aren’t to be any visitors, sorry!” said the Matron, and she shut the little panel.

“Well, there you have it, let’s go back,” said Flora swiftly.

“Now you just wait!” Hestia snapped, and she knocked again.

“ _What_ , what is it?” the Matron said irritably, her eyes peeking out the little rectangle again.

“Could you at least tell Rhiannon we were here to see her? So that she knows? She’s… she’s awake, right?”

Those eyes glared down at them with all the unpleasantness of Professor Snape’s.

“I will tell her you were here…” she said slowly. “What are your names?”

“Hestia and Flora.”

“Very well. Now run along.”

Flora was happy to get back to the common room, but Hestia wasn’t giving up. She went to the Hospital Wing the next day, this time with both Flora and Montel at her side. She listened very closely with her ear pressed to the door before bothering to knock.

“We’re trying a skin graft this evening, but there’s no guarantee it’ll work. The creature that bit her was Dark. We’re lucky the phoenix tears closed up the wound at all…”

“That’s Pomfrey,” whispered Hestia to Montel.

Another voice came, “The most you can do is try.”

“That’s Snape,” Hestia whispered again. “They’re gonna try to graft Rhiannon’s arm.”

“She must be missing a pretty bad chunk,” Montel said. “I feel so bad. I shoulda stuck behind with her…”

They heard footsteps approaching the door and backed away. Snape looked unpleasantly surprised to see them.

“Eavesdropping, Carrow? Davis?”

“We wanted to see Rhiannon,” said Montel.

“No visitors,” said Snape tonelessly and strode along, the double-doors locking behind him.

Hestia was furious. She had spent her classes listening to people bad-mouth Rhiannon for being so poor and so “Mudblood.” She knocked on the Hospital Wing door.

“You again, Miss?” Madam Pomfrey said in a voice that let Hestia know her time was being wasted.

“Could you tell Rhiannon we came to see her again today? So she knows? Montel Davis is here, too. Could you tell her before her surgery?”

“All right, I will, and you would do well not to wander corridors with so few of you!” Madam Pomfrey said, dismissing them.

Hestia walked away gloomily, Montel guiltily, and Flora gratefully. They startled slightly at the sound of quick footsteps before realising that the monster probably doesn’t sound like women’s heels. It was Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, and she looked like she was in pain. She was grabbing her shoulder, where Hestia hoped there wasn’t a bite…

“Professor, are you all right?” Montel asked.

“Oh, hello, Mr Davis. Yes, I’ve just dislocated my shoulder,” Professor Sinistra said. “What are you three doing here?”

“We were tryna get into see Rhiannon Clarke before her surgery, but we’re not allowed.”

Professor Sinistra furrowed her brow even more (it was already a bit furrowed in pain).

“Well, I can see not visiting the Petrified students… they’re not conscious… but Miss Clarke is in there surrounded by statues, practically. I’m sure she needs some visitors. I can let you in,” said the professor.

“You can?” Hestia asked in delight.

“I do count as teacher’s permission, I _think_ ,” Professor Sinistra said with a grin.

Montel knocked on the Hospital Wing door so the professor wouldn’t have to further strain herself. The Matron, once again interrupted, arrived.

“Oh, Professor Sinistra,” she said, happy that it wasn’t Hestia.

“I’ve dislocated my shoulder, I believe,” Professor Sinistra said.

“Come along, come along!” the Matron welcomed, but her face fell when she saw the trio of students.

“I am also giving permission to these three to visit Rhiannon Clarke,” Professor Sinistra added only after the doors were open.

“Now just a moment—”

“What’s the matter, Madam?” Professor Sinistra asked, cocking her head.

“Well, visitors given faculty permission must be signed-in,” Madam Pomfrey said, eyeing the three carefully as she pulled out a chart. “Er, Professor, you may have a seat there… I’ll be right over…”

Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat and looked at Montel.

“First and last name…” she asked even though they had told her minutes ago. (Perhaps Madam Pomfrey had not really told Rhiannon they had been to see her…)

“Montel Davis.”

“Year and house.”

“Slytherin first year.”

“And why are you coming to see Rhiannon Clarke?”

“Er… to say hi…” Montel said.

“Go along. She’s two beds down from Professor Sinistra.”

The Matron then turned to Flora and Hestia. Hestia stepped forward, since it had been her idea. Madam Pomfrey gave her a hard look, up, down, and up again.

“Did your mother go here?”

“Er… I don’t think so,” said Hestia.

Montel hadn’t been asked that question. Madam Pomfrey’s lips flattened to a line.

“And your father…?”

“Er, no…?”

“What’s your name?”

“Hestia.”

“Your full name,” the Matron asked, though it seemed like she wasn’t writing anything down like she did with Montel…

“Hestia Carrow.”

“M-hm,” Madam Pomfrey said. “And why, exactly, are you coming to see Rhiannon Clarke? To bully her?”

Hestia gasped a “No!” and used Montel’s answer, “To say hi,” but what had been enough for Montel’s admittance was not enough for Hestia’s.

“How do you know Miss Clarke?”

“She’s in my class! She’s like, three seats down from me in Transfig—”

“What’s your mother’s name, Hestia?”

“Er… Mabily Blodwyn…”

“What’s Montel’s mother’s name?” Flora shot at the Matron. “You forgot to ask him, Madam.”

Madam Pomfrey opened her mouth, but Professor Sinistra cleared her throat, still awaiting treatment. The twins were granted entry. The first thing Hestia saw was not Rhiannon but rather the stiff, postured bodies of Muggle-born students.

“I don’t like this,” said Flora.

“Well, I think they just have to wait on Mandrake Draughts to brew,” Hestia said, but Flora wasn’t even looking at the Petrified students.

Rhiannon Clarke was sitting up in bed with a duvet’s worth of bandages on her right arm. It was held up in two sling-wraps strung across a metal bar. Rhiannon and Montel were already deep in conversation, but every time Rhiannon tried to gesture, she winced, forgetting that she couldn’t use that arm. The rumours had been right: that monster had really tried to eat her.

Hestia froze about half the amount of the Petrified bodies. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t step forward and talk to the girl after fighting tooth and nail to get in here. Rhiannon and Montel were already talking. Hestia didn’t know how to join a conversation; she only knew how to interrupt or run away. Her eyes burned. All she could think of was what Flora had said at the Muggle church. Anyone can die at any time. Rhiannon Clarke, who had just turned twelve, had almost been killed. She almost wasn’t here anymore. She was almost a dead body. Hestia felt sweaty.

“No, I don’t like this at all,” said Flora.

Hestia could not possibly feel more stupid than she did right now. She pulled her robe up with both hands and dropped her tears in it, embarrassed beyond belief.

_Just talk to her. Just talk. Don’t be weird. You’re so weird. Stop being weird and just talk._

“Oh, hullo, Hestia!” came Rhiannon’s voice, strong and Cockney and not dead.

Hestia came out of her cocoon.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Whatcha cryin’ for?” Rhiannon asked.

Hestia slurped in some air and cried more.

“H-Hi, Rhiannon!” she wept.

 _You’re weird. You’re a weirdo_.

“I ain’t dead, you don’t gotta cry!” Rhiannon sniggered, and her laugh was thick and sweet like strawberry preserves.

Hestia wished that she weren’t Hestia Carrow anymore. She wanted to be Rhiannon Clarke. She wanted to take Rhiannon’s place, so Rhiannon wouldn’t have to be bitten by a monster and called a Mudblood. But she knew she couldn’t do the job; she wasn’t as tough as Rhiannon.

“Come sit, Hestia,” she heard Rhiannon say, but the chair was taken by Montel. When she saw Rhiannon pat the edge of her bed with her free hand, she cried afresh.

“I’m so sorry you were hurt!” she exclaimed as her hands met the starchy hospital blankets upon Rhiannon’s bed.

She was a foot away from Rhiannon now, with a view of how injured she was. How pretty she was. But Hestia _wasn’t_ injured because she was a stupid pure-blood. And Hestia _wasn’t_ pretty. Her mascara was running down her face.

 _Stop being so weird_.

Rhiannon greeted Flora, who approached the foot of the bed with clasped hands and closed lips. Hestia was balling Rhiannon’s blankets into her nervous fists.

“I’m so sorry,” Hestia apologised again. “I’m so sorry I’m like this.”

“Like what?” Rhiannon asked, trying to lean over to see Hestia. “I’d no idea you was so worried about me.”

“Well, I was,” Hestia said, hating to be in her nice clean robes when Rhiannon was stuck in a silly blue hospital gown.

“I was just tellin’ Montel they’re gonna try to piece me arm back together like,” Rhiannon said. “I saw the shadow, so I did, and I made sure not to look at the thing. It sorta looked like a big snake shape.”

Hestia didn’t know how to respond because she didn’t know how to talk. She went with something stupid, “I’m so glad you’re alive.” Because anybody could die at any time. That’s what she learned at the church.

“I’m glad I’m alive, too!” said Rhiannon.

Rhiannon returned to her conversation with Montel Davis, which was about Muggle music. So it was true, then. Rhiannon was a Muggle-born. Hestia imagined her aunt burning the robes she was wearing because they’d touched a Mudblood’s bed.

Hestia hadn’t a thing to add to the conversation. Montel and Rhiannon were listing their favourite bands. Rhiannon’s were “Pink Floyd, Lush, Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins, and the Cocteau Twins.” Hestia didn’t recognise a single one, but Montel seemed to know most of them.

Hestia and Flora didn’t own any music, but they were often surrounded by it. Apart from an uncharacteristic soft spot for the drawing-room ballads on Tisiphone Carrow’s old cylinders, Amycus and Alecto listened to bands like the Hobgoblins, Hexennacht, and Cannibal Coven. They often turned their music up all the way to annoy Dad. Hestia actually liked metal and rock, but she didn’t know if that was what Rhiannon listened to.

“I used to do sweepin’ up round my friend’s music shop in London and got me own guitar,” said Rhiannon.

“Sweet! I have a Maestro Spellcaster Dad got me just this Christmas!” Montel exclaimed.

Hestia cleared her throat, “D-Do either of you like the Hobgoblins…?”

“Hobgoblins?” Rhiannon asked. “I dunno ’em, bein’ Muggle-born and all.”

“I’ll lend you their tapes! I have two of their albums on cassette,” Montel jumped in before Hestia could so much as comment.

She shrunk back and merely observed them talk. The topic changed from music to Quidditch, and Quidditch to Muggle food. Hestia felt blown away. She didn’t get to add anything else before the usual visiting hours were over; Madam Pomfrey wasted no time in removing them from the Hospital Wing.

“We’ll come back tomorrow, Rhiannon,” said Montel.

“Thanks!”

It could not have been clearer that Flora did not want to take another trip to the Hospital Wing after class the next day, but that didn’t stop Hestia.

“When she comes out of there, the first thing she’s gonna hear is how much the whole House hates her. And I wanna make sure she knows we’re not included in that,” Hestia said. “You don’t have to come.”

“I do, though,” said Flora. “I can’t have you walking about the castle without me. What if something happens?”

“Either quit complaining or stay in the common room,” said Hestia with finality.

So there they were again, using Professor Sinistra’s permission to visit. Montel brought Rhiannon snacks and a magazine to read. Hestia had come with nothing but her tense twin sister. It was rough work, being jealous of a boy so popular. Even Hestia liked him platonically.

This time they all had chairs. This time Hestia didn’t cry. She still didn’t have much to say, so it became awkward just observing Rhiannon and Montel’s conversation. Flora had brought her Charms textbook along and barely offered a word, but for some reason, Rhiannon still took that as support. She said that they had tried to graft her arm, but the creature that damaged her skin was too Dark, even for magic.

“Dunno how that works, but I guess Dark magic can’t be fixed,” Rhiannon shrugged nonchalantly, though Hestia could tell it deeply bothered her to have a mangled arm.

 _I’ve got no clue what I’m doing_ , Hestia thought on the third day in a row she visited Rhiannon. Montel had already brought Rhiannon food that morning. The only thing Hestia could think to bring was an Invigoration Draught, upon which Madam Pomfrey used about five or six Revealing Spells before permitting it to be given to Rhiannon.

Hestia was too busy with classes the next day to make it to the Hospital Wing in time. She was behind on homework but didn’t care. All day and night she had to listen to people whisper about the Mudblood Slytherin. Actually, most didn’t even bother to whisper. Even the _other_ Houses were talking about her, though they usually didn’t use the slur.

“What’s she doing in Slytherin?”

 _Well, that’s a great question Mr-Know-It-All-Ravenclaw_ , Hestia thought. _Maybe it’s because she IS a Slytherin_.

Hestia had big plans to apologise for missing a day of visitation, counting down the minutes to her break period when she could see Rhiannon. Since she was painfully lacking conversation, she decided to play tic-tac-toads with Rhiannon that day. It would be fun. Hestia even planned to draw in the toads for Rhiannon due to the bad arm. But Hestia never got to see Rhiannon, for a terrifying announcement from the Headmistress sounded through the halls:-

“ _All students return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please_.”

“Another Mudblood’s been chomped on!” Diane Carter squealed with glee.

“Or Petrified!” Olivia Shardlow joined in.

“Or killed!” said Imogen Stretton.

Hestia was getting ready to jinx salt into all their eyes when she realised that the first place they’d end up would be the Hospital Wing, where Rhiannon was. As she was swept up in the army of students trying to get back to their common rooms, she also considered jinxing herself just to be with Rhiannon instead of all these monsters. But that would leave Flora alone.

Hestia requested that they go back to their dormitory so they wouldn’t have to hear all the blood-supremacists celebrating in the common room. That’s where they were when Zoe, Scarlett, and Alex came in with the news that the school would close. Flora lay belly-down on the bed for the remainder of the day. The other girls went to the common room to keep updated on the gossip.

“I don’t want to go back home,” she said once Hestia joined her on the bed. “They won’t pay for a tutor. It’ll just be them.”

“I definitely don’t wanna go home.”

Flora started to cry quietly. She had been thoroughly trained not to cry, so when it came out, it came out stifled and cold. She bustled away to the bathroom. Hestia could hear her splashing water on her face. Flora stepped out of the bathroom with a final sniffle and walked back over. Hestia stood up and instantly pulled Flora into a hug. All the muscles in Flora’s arms tightened, like she was trying so hard to be tough that she forgot how to be twelve.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Giving you a hug, duh!” said Hestia.

“What for?”

“Be-Because?” piped Hestia. “The school’s closing, and people are being attacked! Does it have to be our birthday for me to give you a hug? Merlin, Flora, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _you_?” Flora returned.

Hestia released her sister from the hug they both had needed. She stared at her. Flora stared back, looking, perhaps, like she had just been exposed to an unpleasant smell.

 _No way_.

“Oh, I know what this is about,” Hestia said, a vermin of rage burrowing in her stomach. “You’re all freaked out because I touched Rhiannon, aren’t you? _Aren’t you_?”

“Wha—?” Flora uttered, her hitched shoulders hitching even higher. “No, no, Hestia, oh, no—”

“Alecto’s batshit germ phobia’s really got to you!” Hestia screamed. “Y’think Rhiannon’s dirty ’cause she isn’t pureblood‽ _Is that it_ ‽”

Flora started blubbering her words and shedding fresh tears:-

“No, Hestia, I’m sorry, that’s not — no, I’m so sorry — I’m so sorry —”

“Oh, _save it and shove it_ , Flora! Go out to the common room with all the other people that are _just like them_!”

“ _No_!” Flora screamed. “No, no, I’m not, no, Hestia, _please_ …”

And then she fell to her knees as though she had been poisoned and started wailing. Hestia scowled and stepped around her. She had nowhere to go. The halls had a man-eating monster, the common room had not much better, and the dormitory had her stupid sister. So Hestia locked herself in the bathroom, stole Scarlett’s bubble bath, and soaked her angry bones. Flora had never cried _this_ hard before…

 _She has to learn_ , Hestia thought with a sneer.


	5. May, 1993 - June, 1994

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song rec:  
> ◈ [Oom Sha La La by Haley Heynderickx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6u7UZVOPKg)

That day turned out to be a most eventful day that Hestia had the pleasure of not being involved with. A Weasley girl had been dragged down to the Chamber of Secrets by a _confirmed_ basilisk, which was now dead, courtesy of Harry Potter. With the child-killing monster obliterated, there was no reason to close the school. The Hospital Wing doors, though, remained closed. A group of Slytherins had decided to stand outside it and chant “Mudblood” since it was already obvious they weren’t going to win House Cup. Madam Pomfrey came flying out like a gale force wind, shooting coloured “X”s on all the Slytherins who weren’t fast enough to get away — marking them for detention with Filch and his resuscitated cat. Everyone who was Petrified, the ghost included, was cured and discharged. But Rhiannon Clarke was still in her bandaged prison.

“Hestia, right?” Rhiannon asked when Hestia came to see her.

“Yeah, I’m Hestia.”

“I got it right! Ha! Where’s Flora at?”

“She’s er… not coming.”

Flora had been buried in her blankets, crying periodically, much to the concern of their roommates.

“Would you, er, like a game of tic-tac-toads?” Hestia asked shyly.

“Would I! It’s boring as hell in here!” Rhiannon said with delight.

Rhiannon drew beautifully ugly toads with her left hand. She beat Hestia two-out-of-three.

“How’s er… how’s your arm gonna be?” Hestia asked. “It really was basilisk venom after all… that stuff can kill a person in minutes.”

Rhiannon shrugged, “Yeah, so can heroin, but it hasn’t taken me mum yet.”

Hestia blinked, having no idea what heroin was. Rhiannon looked like she had said something she shouldn’t.

“Does your mum know what happened…?” Hestia asked.

Rhiannon looked at the floor.

“Well, no. All she knows is that I’m a witch. And, er, she’s kinda the ‘burn the witch’ type of person, if ya know what I mean.”

Hestia was aghast. She thought that witch burnings had ended, and that was why Muggles and wizards had been intermarrying.

“You mean she tried to _burn_ you?” Hestia asked in horror.

“No, no!” Rhiannon exclaimed. “I mean, she just as well may have with as much as she beats me, but no, not literally. Sorry to dump this on ya, but my home situation ain’t good. When they said they was closin’ the school, I… I almost wished they hadn’t saved me from the bite, yanno? I hate it at home.”

Hestia’s heart sunk as she tried to take in the gravity of Rhiannon’s words.

“I hate it at my place, too,” she said, though Rhiannon’s mum was making Amycus and Alecto sound tame.

During the next couple of days, Hestia and Rhiannon opened up a bit to each other. Just a _tiny, tiny bit_ , of course, because the subjects were too touchy and the acquaintanceship was too new. Hestia found she had some similarities with Rhiannon even though their blood status couldn’t have been more dissimilar. They were both poor, for example. The difference was the Carrows were poor and had things. _Lots_ of things, actually. That was part of the reason why the Carrow vaults were chronically empty. But Rhiannon was the kind of poor that had nothing, nothing at all. Hestia had watched Rhiannon put on weight throughout the year, but she had arrived looking underfed.

Neither of them wanted to talk about their home life, which ended up being something else in common. There seemed to be something understood between them. And after the eighteenth tic-tac-toad and the fifth game of hangman, maybe Hestia had even been promoted as “friend.”

When Rhiannon was released from the Hospital Wing that Tuesday, she was met with an onslaught of hatred. Hestia couldn’t always be there to stick up for her due to the sheer amount of bullying that went on. The teachers tried to cull what they could see, but there were so many little things that went unnoticed.

The Mudblood Slytherin. Everyone knew.

Draco Malfoy and Vincent Crabbe came to one of the last dinners with a scheming look on their faces. By the time Hestia had figured out they were going to throw a Dungbomb in Rhiannon’s food, it was too late. The bomb went flying past her nose smelling something awful—

“ _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ”

The Dungbomb was caught in mid-air and suspended, much like the Petrified ghost had been. And the caster was none other than Flora. Hestia could have jumped up for joy, but Malfoy had already jumped up, running away from the Dungbomb Flora was now chasing him with. Rhiannon got a good laugh out of it, and her happiness was a potion Hestia wished she could brew.

On the train ride home, Hestia thought long and hard about herself. She didn’t really like Muggles. She knew that. She also knew that she had been taught that. But like her Dad, she never had anything against Muggle-borns. They were wizards. Disadvantaged wizards, it seemed. She knew that in two years, she could take Muggle Studies. Maybe she _should_.

In becoming more in tune with herself, Hestia became more in tune with the world around her. Most of the couples she saw on the train were boys and girls together. But there were also some boys with boys and girls with girls.

 _That seems more like it_ , Hestia thought. _What I feel_.

It wasn’t _all_ there yet, of course, because she definitely thought there was something gross happening between the two girls she’d been peeking at. But maybe someday what was gross and funny would be something she would _like_ to do with a girl. Certainly not a boy. Hestia blushed as she counted all the pretty girls she saw on the train.

(It ended up being every girl she saw except Pansy Parkinson and Rhiannon’s nasty roommates).

And Rhiannon was the prettiest girl of all.

Hestia and Flora were delighted to have Dad pick them up again, but they had to go straight home. As if Alecto could sense Hestia’s new crush on a Muggle-born, she subjected both girls to a full-body scrubbing before they could enter the house. The water was hot and abrading. The home was an unhappy one.

Hestia and Flora underwent rigorous training for entering the Dark trade over the next month. Then the day came for them to really do it. Amycus and Alecto Transfigured the younger twins to look like old ladies. They handed them baskets of talismans and venoms, saying “no less than 10 Galleons for each amulet and no less than 15 for the venoms.” It turned out that that was their profit price. Amycus and Alecto had a trick up their sleeves: they were going to work down the south side of Knockturn with dramatically inflated prices, so that everyone would rush up to buy similar products from the “two old ladies.” They were still getting ripped off, just not as much. And the Carrows made enough money to prepare even better potions for next week. They changed their technique: all five members of the household sold aggressively.

After about a month of the trade, Hestia started pocketing a portion of her earnings. She impulsively spent her first Knockturn money on a beat-up, out-of-tune guitar from a second-hand music shop in Diagon Alley. Amycus had been so furious with her for using the money without permission ( _read_ : _for using the money she had earned instead of handing it over to him_ ) that he smashed her guitar to pieces. Hestia made crocodile tears to fool him. That guitar was specifically made for smashing and reintegrated itself as soon as Amycus left the room. Hestia asked her father to soundproof their bedroom so she could tune the junky thing and learn to play. Girls like boys who play guitar, she knew. Maybe girls could like a girl who played guitar, too. It kept her busy. So did Knockturn.

Hestia lost count of how many crushes she got on the Dark witches who became her regular customers that summer. It was dreadfully difficult to feel so strongly towards twenty-year-old women when you were a twelve-year-old girl with an eighty-year-old’s face.

Hestia spent more of her earnings on books: _Everything You Need to Know About Playing Guitar_ , _A Guide to Muggle Pop Culture_ , and _Jay Carrageenan_ ’ _s Complete Collection of Crude Jokes_. She hid the books with her life, but when her earnings didn’t match her inventory, Alecto pulled her aside. Hestia was certain she was going to get smacked, but Alecto drew Flora over, too.

“Here’s what you have to do,” Alecto said.

She then Duplicated an empty glass phial, conjured water into it, added salt, and changed the colour.

“Now you have snake oil,” she said. “Sell it for the same price to make up for what you spend.”

Flora and Hestia could hardly believe it. They started adding all kinds of flavours and colours to water and selling it to younger, newer Dark users or elderly, clueless ones. It wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, but then again, neither was _buying_ this stuff. Hestia started using Knockturn as a place to try out experimental formulas she had made in her sink. Flora started pirating priceless grimoires using copy-quills in cheap, blank journals. It wasn’t like anybody was going to stop them.

As the summer waned to a close, the dark and gloomy Knockturn came alive with more activity. At every corner, people were talking of Sirius Black escaping Azkaban. Some were very excited at the idea of Azkaban’s security being weakened, where others cautioned that Sirius was sure to be Kissed by dementors any day now. But he was still at large by the time the first of September rolled around, so to “protect” the students, dementors lined the outside of the castle.

Daphne Greengrass gave a large sigh during the Opening Feast, waiting for attention. Hestia had been hoping the Greengrasses would stay home due to the criminal on the loose, but obviously they needed their education. Daphne and Pansy Parkinson chatted at annoying volume throughout the Sorting Ceremony.

“No, my sister couldn’t come after all…” Daphne said. “We thought there might be a _sliver_ of hope for her, but she just wasn’t Hogwarts material…”

“Is she some kind of a Squib?” asked Blaise Zabini with his nose up.

“Good heavens, no,” Daphne said. “It’s just that her magic is so unpredictable. Compared to me, she’s _pitiful_ , really…”

“She can’t be as pitiful as you are in Potions,” Draco Malfoy drawled.

Daphne didn’t bring up her underperforming sister to her plethora of friends again. Hestia and Flora continued to feel misplaced and asocial. All the people who would, in theory, be friends with them were completely repulsive personalities. All of the people who they wanted as friends were too put off by their last name and their social awkwardness. Hestia felt that she and Rhiannon could get closer now that Rhiannon’s roommates were shunning her, but it didn’t turn out that way. Rhiannon spent practically all of her free time with Montel Davis, his older sister Tracey, and the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin.

The dejection really set in then. Hestia would never be as charismatic (or as male) as Montel. She would never be as pretty and funny as Tracey. And she would never be able to ward off Rhiannon’s bullies the way Professor Lupin could.

Hestia wasn’t popular. Hestia wasn’t a teacher. Hestia was just a girl who sold belladonna in Knockturn Alley and strummed a beat-up guitar when her roommates weren’t there to tell her she was a rubbish player. Her self-hatred, unfortunately, prevented her from noticing and taking advantage of the times Rhiannon Clarke was truly alone. They talked in class sometimes, but that was it.

Hestia earned more attention from boys, which was _not_ the plan, due to the makeup that made her look older and her dirty sense of humour. In the spring, Sebastian Daley, who had got his moustache rather early, invited her to a Quidditch game. It was the mantra “make friends” that led her to accept his invitation, though when he tried to hold her hand, she said “I’m into girls.”

Sebastian’s eyes went wide, and then he said, “Well, so am I.”

“It’s very difficult,” Hestia commented. “I can’t figure them out.”

“I guess I can’t either,” said Sebastian.

Slytherin lost the game, but Hestia felt an odd relief. It was as though saying she fancied girls aloud solidified a part of her that she actually liked. That was good, considering that she wasn’t especially fond of herself. She liked girls, and she _liked_ liking girls. It was just too bad girls didn’t like her. As Hestia came down from the stands, she spotted something she shouldn’t have, as if the gods had heard her sapphic cry and were giving her an early harvest. Asenath Greengrass, a silver-spooned Gryffindor, was kneeling under the stands with a raven-haired Hufflepuff.

As people moved around and Hestia stayed still, she decided she’d best slip behind one of the decorative Quidditch team banners if she was going to stare. Asenath was only one year above Hestia, but she seemed to be about ten years ahead of her in what she was doing. Asenath’s hands were under the girl’s shirt — all the way under. Hestia blinked stars out of her eyes and ran away into the crowd.

 _Won’t they get caught_? Hestia wondered. _Don’t they care_?

It was a new, icky sort of feeling that she couldn’t exactly sort out. It didn’t come back to her until Rhiannon Clarke partnered up with her in Potions during the last week of May.

Rhiannon had gained a lot of weight now that she was in school and her sweet tooth had come in. And with a lot of weight came a lot of curves. Hestia felt like a Bowtruckle next to Rhiannon. She envied her breasts, but she also wanted to touch them. It was all _so_ strange!

“I heard you’re top of the class in Potions, Hestia,” Rhiannon said, “so why ya mixin’ up the ingredients in the first step?”

Hestia looked down. Her hands were full of perilla when she should have grabbed prunella.

“Good catch,” Hestia squeaked.

When she was getting ready to strain the potion to test the consistency, all she could see was Rhiannon’s reflection in the cauldron below her. Rhiannon had a stray curl on her face (and a stray Carrow trying not to beg for attention).

“Don’t let the Mudblood breathe on your Potion, or it’ll _curdle_ ,” sneered Olivia Shardlow from the next table over.

“Go eat a dick, Olivia!” Hestia responded instantly, it being the worst insult she could fathom.

She ended up with five points from Slytherin and an appointment in Snape’s office. He sank into his chair and cleared his throat.

“Now, Miss Carrow, where did you learn to speak that wa—” Snape asked, and when Hestia opened her mouth, he said, “Nevermind.”

Hestia squirmed in her chair.

“ _Why_ did you have that outburst, Miss Carrow? You are my best student.”

Hestia exhaled and poured it all out:-

“Shardlow called Rhiannon a Mudblood. She said she was gonna make the Potion curdle. I just said what came to mind. I’m angry, y’know? People have been calling her names all year.”

Snape raised his eyebrows.

“Where does this occur?”

“Oh, when there’s no teachers round, of course!” said Hestia frustratedly. “It’s her roommates, mostly, and older boys… all because of that stupid basilisk. Rhiannon came in lying about being half-blood, and it didn’t even work out! Everyone knows and they bully her for it!”

“I see.”

Snape certainly didn’t act like he was going to do anything about it, but for some reason, Rhiannon’s roommates got a lot quieter during exam week. That was enough to make Hestia happy. She was so happy, in fact, that she had enough energy to make fake Brain Potions and sell them to the fifth years, who were taking their O.W.L.s. But despite the decrease in bullying, Rhiannon walked round the school with tears constantly in her eyes. Hestia couldn’t guess what was wrong for the life of her, until word got round that Professor Lupin had resigned.

The circumstances of his departure? He was a werewolf.

“This is a strange school,” Flora remarked on the train home. “No wonder Amycus and Alecto are always talking about Durmstrang.”

“Professor Lupin was the best teacher we’ve had yet, Flora,” Hestia said.

“He was,” Flora agreed. “That doesn’t mean things _aren’t_ strange.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hestia said.

And she braced herself to go back to her strange little corner of the world for the summer.


	6. August, 1994

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song rec:  
> ◈ [Parasol by Tori Amos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHWrPsgojMI)

Flora became a woman in a tarn of chaos in the middle of an August night. She screamed louder than murder, vomited, passed out, woke up, and screamed again. Hestia, on the other hand, started her period the following week with neither calamity nor fanfare. Hestia asked Alecto how to brew herself potions so she wouldn’t have to have the damn thing every month. Only once Hestia perfected the formula did she share with Flora.

Flora stopped sleeping, and sleeping in the same room as an insomniac wasn’t always easy. Hestia found that her Bifröst journey to puberty led her to sleep _more_ , and that when she didn’t sleep, she became extremely grouchy. Sometimes she was also grouchy with plenty of sleep. It was fortunate that the Knockturn trade mostly occurred at night, when Aurors were too busy _still_ searching for Sirius Black to bother with peddlers.

Hestia and Flora made a lot of money that ultimately got swept out of their hands. Alecto and Amycus used it to buy more things they didn’t need. Clothes seemed to be their favourite thing, which was ridiculous considering that they rarely went anywhere. Hestia, who had outgrown playing dress-up around seven or eight, rolled her eyes at Alecto’s new embroidered handbag. Their next favourite thing to buy was absinthe and absinthiana, though Hestia almost never saw them drunk, unlike the way Rhiannon described her parents. Finally, they threw a lot of the house’s budget towards purchasing out-of-print and banned books, which Alecto would read aloud to Amycus in the parlour until he fell asleep.

Hestia would secretly join the audience on occasion, silent on the stair. Her money had helped pay for those books, and since everything she bought could be subject to scrutiny, this was the easiest way to be transported to worlds outside the walls of this house. It was too bad all the stories were narrated in her aunt’s wheezy voice. She’d have liked to have heard them told in a Cockney accent.

“What do you think Rhiannon does in the summer?” Hestia mused one day, watching the sea from her window. She lowered her voice and added, “In Muggle London?”

“Maybe she plugs in televisions,” Flora guessed.

“Well, whatever she does, it’s not this.”

“No, it’s not this,” Flora agreed as she counterfeited another grimoire.

On a slow, humid night, when all their customers were running up their tabs at the pubs, Hestia turned to her elderly-looking sister.

“Flora?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you fancy anybody?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Do you?”

“No,” Hestia lied. “I was just thinking what it’d be like to maybe fancy somebody.”

“I don’t think it’s something you can control.”

Flora spoke as though affection were a N.E.W.T.-level Alchemy project she didn’t want to start. She charmed her basket in front of her so she wouldn’t have to hold it. They’d have to make rounds all over if they wanted to make any money tonight. Hestia had worn the wrong shoes for that sort of thing. She should have known.

“Some of the Weird Sisters are pretty cute,” Flora remarked, though it was more about getting Hestia to talk.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Which one do you think is the cutest?”

“Which one? Aren’t there like seventeen of them?”

Flora chuckled, “C’mon, tell me.”

Hestia pulled a name out of thin air, since he had been mentioned in her guitar book, “Donaghan Tremlett.” Flora was thrilled to tease her about it. Hestia figured it’d be best if she kept her enduring mix of feelings about Rhiannon Clarke quiet.

“We’re supposed to take more classes next year,” she said to change the subject.

“I know for certain that I need Arithmancy,” said Flora.

“That’s a hard class,” Hestia warned. “Older kids complain about it on the daily.”

“I want to be successful so I don’t have to do this for the rest of my life.”

“Fair.”

“Amycus and Alecto said we can use our money for Hogsmeade trips,” Flora added as they climbed the hill to try to snatch Diagon night-owls.

“Really?”

“Yeah. They said not to let anybody figure out we were poor.”

“Ah.”

Hestia got more blisters on her feet than customers. It was getting hard to be thirteen, knowing that at seventeen they would be considered adults. All at once, it hit Hestia in the face that her childhood had been terrible and that she was already on her way to making a shoddy version of a grown-up.

A light rain lulled her to sleep that night after she was finally able to get off of her sore feet. When the light rain became a violent storm hours later, Hestia awoke. The glass of her windows was splattered, and the lightning struck beyond her curtains, illuminating the room like a spell. She rolled to her other side so the flashes of light wouldn’t pester her eyelids. She heard something, maybe the house creaking in the wind.

This side wasn’t very comfortable to sleep on, so she lay on her back. More wind gusts brought more rain to her glass. When the lightning struck again, bubbly-looking shadows from the raindrops briefly dressed her blanket. She could hear how angry the ocean was from here. It was hitting the sea wall. But she’d slept through worse.

She rolled over again. There was just something about having one’s house creak that kept one awake. There was no intruder; this place was kept under more wards than the Ministry itself. Hestia closed her eyes.

Hestia blinked again, sleepless. Flora was awake, her eyes all in the lightning. Her fist was balled tight round the blanket over her neck. Hestia sat all the way up. She smoothed her blankets and fluffed both her pillows. She lay down with her back to the window, but she couldn’t shut her eyes. It’s the wind. It’s the wind.

“It’s them,” Flora mouthed with horror carved into her face.

“Wha?”

Hestia lifted her head from the pillow.

A horrible noise, worse than a dropped cauldron, thudded against the stair rail and crashed into the floor downstairs. A second noise came a moment later, this one without the extra thud, swishing the air and crunching with unbearable volume on the solid wood. It was the sound of two bodies jumping four storeys in 1968. It was just as Flora had said: they’d been jumping ever since.

~

The next morning, Hestia awoke to the sound of Flora getting dressed. Maybe Flora had never slept.

“Where ya goin’?” Hestia mumbled, kicking her tangled blankets off.

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Get fresh air.”

Hestia groaned and sat up.

“With Dad?”

“No.”

Flora combed and twisted her hair into a tight bun and opened the door.

“Flora, wait, where are you going?”

“Away.”

“Alone? Can’t you wait for me?”

Flora sat back down on her bed, which she hadn’t made. Hestia grabbed a bundle of mismatched clothes and stepped to the bathroom. Her reflection greeted her. She felt so unattractive without makeup, but Flora wasn’t wearing any today, either.

Skirt, shirt, shawl. Hestia didn’t need a bra yet. She likely wouldn’t need a bra for a long time. She glared at her bee-sting breasts. It wasn’t fair that she had to be so hormonal and still look like a kid. Rhiannon would probably never look at her the way she looked at Rhiannon.

“Ready,” Hestia said, and Flora led the way.

Hestia looked all over the staircase on her way down. She didn’t know what she expected. There was nothing there. The handrail wasn’t even dented. The banister at the very top was fine. There were no dents or blood on the floor. All these things had been repaired twenty-six years ago. Flora didn’t even take a second glance at the spot. She put on her sandals, swung open the door, and breathed in heavy, fishy petrichor.

The house sealed itself off from the world once they exited. Now they would walk among Muggles. Flora stormed along the footpath, out of the trees, and down the zig-zag steps along the trail. The coastline was a mess. Debris from the storm littered the sand in long, dark stripes. As they descended to the beach, Hestia saw that several beach huts were broken. The sand was wet and compacted. The ocean was grey. Flora went straight for it, stepping beyond the littered drift. Hestia splashed footprints right behind her as they walked on the high tide line. The cool water got between her toes.

> _**Christine Matthews / Cromer Beach /** [ **CC BY-SA 2.0** ](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)_

They stepped over the groynes across the sand and reached the gravelly part of the beach, gradually making their way to the pier. Flora had splattered sand all the way up her ankles. Hestia was surprised they were walking in the water as opposed to the promenade, since Flora usually disliked walking in the sand. They came upon sticks broken off from trees in the storm. Hestia picked one up and wrote her name in the sand, watching it wash away. She drew a flower. She tried to draw a sun, but the waves came too quickly. Flora picked up a longer stick and dragged it along at her side, writing no message but rather a single, flat line.

Hestia would have liked to bring Rhiannon to Cromer. To the house, like a normal girl. To the beach on a sunnier day, even just as friends. To some place where they could forget how Rhiannon almost lost her life.

That was all out of the question. Besides, there were too many negative memories attached to this location. Maybe it was better if Rhiannon would never see Hestia’s hometown. Hestia already knew Rhiannon wouldn’t bring Hestia to her house, even if by some miracle Rhiannon wanted to.

The pier, which looked so tiny from their house, now loomed over them with its criss-crossed legs and long body. In the rubbish washed up alongside the last wooden groyne, Flora found a beached, dead fish. Hestia laughed, expecting Flora to run away, grossed-out. Instead, Flora poked its carcass with the stick, even lifting its fin from the side of its body to see the light come through it, translucent. Hestia stood back a bit as Flora rolled the dead fish over, studying it in silence.

Flora left the fish and rummaged about the foreshore, picking up shells and peering sharply into them. If the shells still had an organism tucked inside, she threw them back into the water. But she tested her strength against the empty ones. Which ones could she break with her bare hands? Which ones were too sturdy? Hestia tried to pick up the cooler-looking shells before Flora would find them and snap them in her fists.

The next time Hestia looked up, Flora had started wading into the water.

“Flora.”

The waves salted her knees.

“Hey, Flora, you’ll ruin your clothes.”

Flora’s skirt billowed around her at the next crash of waves, then plastered to her legs. Hestia huffed.

“You know — hey! — you know we can’t use magic to clean you up, or we’ll be expelled. You’ll get in trouble if you’re all a mess when we go back!”

Flora paid no mind to Hestia’s warning. Later, she stepped back out of the water with soiled clothes and retrieved her stick. With it, Flora excavated the grimy Muggle litter, looking at the bright labels on the plastic bottles. She found a small shoe and lifted its laces as she had done with the dead fish’s fin. They were still tied in a double-knot.

A large, beat-up tennis ball bounced against the wood groyne, and soon a large dog came running after it. The dog was too late; the ball had bounced right into the water. Hestia moved to go get it, but Flora trotted over and grabbed the slimy ball first. She held it up for the dog, who was very friendly, and tossed it. Hestia grinned as she watched the dog run after it, joyfully kicking up clods of wet sand. To her surprise, the dog brought the ball back to Flora. Flora held out her hand so he could sniff her, then lightly scratched his ear.

“Sorry!”

A Muggle man was running to catch up with his dog.

“So sorry — threw it too far!”

“That’s okay,” said Flora. “He’s very happy about it.”

Hestia raised her eyebrows. This was the first time Flora had ever spoken to a Muggle. When they walked around the beach, _any_ necessary interactions or small “hellos” went through Hestia or Dad.

“All right, c’mon, boy!” said the Muggle, clipping the dog’s leash to his collar. “Cheers!”

“Cheers,” said Flora.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Hestia said teasingly once the Muggle left.

Flora took out one of Hestia’s bouncy balls from her wet pocket. She threw it against the wood wall of the groyne and caught it back in her hand. They made a game of it, alternating who would catch it after it rebounded from the wall. Flora failed to catch it more times than Hestia, but they weren’t keeping score. For someone playing a game, Flora was flinty.

“That’s the first time I heard it,” Hestia spoke up, and Flora missed the ball.

“Hm?”

“You know. Our grandparents,” Hestia said.

Flora missed the ball again. It went right into the debris.

“They earned every inch they fell,” she said, digging it out.

Hestia started throwing the ball gentler so Flora could keep up. After their game, they hoisted themselves on the wet wood of the groyne, sullying their clothes, knees, and palms. They weren’t supposed to sit there, but nobody looked ready to stop them. From their post, they watched the beach come awake. The post-storm mess kept the tourists away, but locals and joggers didn’t mind. The turbid ocean whispered rhymes, breathing after its exercise.

That was the morning Hestia finally heard the submerged bells. They came over the water, barely audible. But that was them all right. The bells of Cromer’s church, which weren’t tolling at all, were loud and musical. Shipden’s ghost bells, though, were muffled and metallic. Hestia sat perfectly still and listened carefully, but she couldn’t determine the exact nature of the haunted ringing.

Hour strikes? Sunday service? Wedding?

Funeral?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fic I couldn't get out of my head, probably because there's a lot of "me" in it. When I developed my main series (Astoria of Slytherin, which chronologically follows this), each character in this family ended up representing a different part of the things in my life that made me who I am.
> 
> And basically, the Carrows won't leave me alone lol so this fic was born. Thank you for reading.


End file.
